


All Things Beautiful

by stammiviktor



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: A:tLA-based AU, Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bending (Avatar), Don't copy to another site, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Fire Nation Yuuri, Fluff, M/M, Mentions of War, Mutual Pining, No Homophobia, Romance, Sexism, Water Tribe Viktor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2019-09-24 14:03:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 52,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17101973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammiviktor/pseuds/stammiviktor
Summary: The voice is like bells, sharp and clear yet somehow infinitely soft. Warmth caresses Yuuri’s face and a shudder wracks his frozen frame.“You’re okay now. You’re safe.”(In the glacial waters near the North Pole, two worlds collide.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story has been my baby for some months now and it's maybe the most on-brand thing I've ever written. Avatar: the Last Airbender is near and dear to my heart and I've loved jumping back into this universe. 
> 
> You don't have to have seen a:tla to read this story! I've tried very hard to make sure it stands alone. Also, it's only based on the a:tla universe - none of the characters from that show will make an appearance, and I'm taking some liberties with the universe to make it fit the yoi characters/this story better.
> 
> Thank you so much to [Rachel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrome/pseuds/Chrome) for helping me develop the plot and for being a lovely writing friend/beta <3 And a huge thank you to [Ollie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/postingpebbles) as well for your invaluable feedback! 
> 
> (Also, I swear on my life that this story has a happy ending and has **no character death** , no matter what the first few paragraphs say.)

The sun rises and sets five times before he dies.  

On the first day, Yuuri searches the contents of his waterlogged drawstring bag for something, anything, that can save him. Instead he finds an unfamiliar green outfit, the residue of disintegrated crackers, and a few heavy, foreign coins. Stuck inside the pair of pants is a piece of parchment that tears at the edges when he unfolds it; his eyes trace the characters and he prepares himself for tears that never come.

(He should be grateful, he supposes. He needs to conserve as much water as he can.)

He slips the note into his pocket and places the other items, one by one, back in the bag. Useless, all of it, and something horrible bubbles in his veins. He very nearly throws it out into the waves, as far and hard as he can—but he stops. He can’t. He can’t.

He tries to paddle toward the setting sun, but it leaves him panting and sweating and when night falls it looks like he has barely even moved. He wonders where his panic has gone, why it would haunt him his entire life in the most benign of scenarios only to abandon him now that it might be justified. Instead, he just feels empty. He lies back, and lets the currents carry him.

On the second day, he prays to Agni. He doesn’t really know how—his parents never made him learn—but that’s what people do, right? In situations like these? Perhaps he should be praying to the Ocean Spirit instead but, religious or not, the Spirit of Fire is all he’s ever known.

He prays, and nothing happens. He’s not sure what he expected.

On the third day, he sits with his knees tucked into his chest and looks out at the waves, trying to ignore the hunger gnawing holes in his gut. The wooden plank beneath him, jagged from where it broke off the side of the ship, undulates with the waves. He feels nauseated. The salt in the air stings his eyes and burns his bone-dry throat. His fingers play at the edges of the note, but he doesn’t open it again.

He clings to the fire in his chest, his only anchor as he floats aimlessly at sea.

On the fourth day, the air grows cold and he begins to take bets with himself. What will it be: the cold, the hunger, or the thirst? He’s not sure what he would prefer. He puts all five Earth Kingdom coins on dehydration.

On the fifth day, the lion-vultures begin to circle. He heard stories, when he was young, of the Air Nomads taking their dead to a mountaintop to let scavengers pick at the body until nothing was left but bones—sky-burial, it was called. He has heard, too, about the Water Tribe sending their dead off to sea in empty canoes, never to return.

Barbaric, all of it. He always thought he would be burned, his body returning to ash and his soul to Agni, and— he hopes he will be forgiven, for dying like this.

His body is weak, his thoughts are fuzzy. The ocean around him is dotted with chunks of floating ice and the cold seeps through his fingers and toes into his bones, his veins, his mind. The fire in his chest is dimming, with no energy left to burn and creeping ice threatening at its edges.

Eventually, there is nothing at all.

 

❄

 

The next time he opens his eyes, Yuuri is definitely dead. His entire being has been frozen solid, all heat and warmth and life driven from his body. He is empty, heavy, stiff in the arms around him.

It’s these arms that rouse him, force him to pry his eyes open despite the frosted lashes gluing them together, and he— he tries to blink, to make his dry eyes focus because the face above him is the most beautiful he has ever seen.

With such bright blue eyes, ice-pale skin, long hair like a halo of moonlight whipping around in the wind, Yuuri’s slushy mind determines that this must be a spirit. The Ocean Spirit, perhaps? Or the Moon? He wonders if he has made them angry, trespassing as he is. Perhaps they know Agni, perhaps when he prayed—

“You’re okay now. You’re safe.”

The voice is like bells, sharp and clear yet somehow infinitely soft. Warmth caresses Yuuri’s face and a shudder wracks his frozen frame. The spirit’s face crumples in concern.

Yuuri’s eyes slide closed, darkness enveloping him just as he begins to feel himself moving, those arms locked around him and lifting, lifting, until Yuuri feels like he might be flying. It would—should—be terrifying, but all he can think of is the warmth of the spirit’s arms and the little soothing words whispered in Yuuri’s ear— _ah, there we go, now if I just, alright, safe, you’re safe…_

 

❄

 

When he awakens again it’s to a hand on his chin and hot, foul liquid trickling down the back of his throat. He chokes, spitting it out, his eyes flying open.

“I know, sea-prune stew is a bit of an acquired taste. But you need all the nutrients you can get, and you can’t eat anything healthier than this!”

His dry eyes burn and his brain feels foggy but he can make out, even in the low lighting, the figure standing above him. His spirit, lingering over him and looking slightly less ethereal in the lamp-light, seems more like a man now, with his cream-colored skin and braided hair and those eyes made not of glacial ice but warm sea-water.

“What’s your name?” he asks, the back of his hand stroking Yuuri’s cheek.

All Yuuri can think, all he can say, is, “Beautiful.”

The man laughs, and Yuuri physically _feels_ his heart skip a beat. Huh. He’s not dead after all. Dreaming, maybe. Hallucinating, most likely…

“You are quite lovely, to be certain, but I don’t think that’s your name. I’d like to call you something other than Beautiful Shipwreck Boy, if that’s alright with you.”

He shudders, summons his energy, and against his better judgment breathes, “Yuuri.”

“Yuuri,” the man repeats, and no one’s ever said it quite like that before. Like those two syllables are preciously delicate. Like _he_ is—

“I am Viktor. Now go back to sleep, you need rest. We’ll be home soon.”

And Yuuri obeys, Viktor’s smile lighting up the darkness behind his eyelids as he lets himself drift.

 

❄

 

There is something cool on his chest, chilling his skin and reaching down deep inside him. Strangely, nothing about it is unpleasant, but rather soothing like peppermint or a sea breeze or a cool bath after a long day of dancing.

It calms him, and through the calm he hears voices.

“This was a mistake, you should have just left him.”

“And why would I do that?”

The response sounds like a hiss. “That man isn’t an Air Nomad, and he sure as hell isn’t Water Tribe.”

“No. He’s Earth Kingdom. Or did you not notice the color of the clothes in his bag? And the coins?”

“You saw his eyes just as well as I did, Vitya. Did he look Earth Kingdom to you?”

“I’m not sure, _Ivan,_ since I was busy trying to save his life.”

“Don’t bullshit me. You saw. Have you ever seen eyes like that, Earth Kingdom my ass—”

“How would you know what an Earth Kingdom man should look like? Have you ever met one?”

“Well, no, but...”

“Then leave me alone. I have work to do.”

Footsteps retreat and, soon after, the cold sensation in Yuuri’s chest slips away. Something warm covers his hand, prying his fingers out of their tight fist and stroking the inside of Yuuri’s palm. He shudders.

“You’re safe with me,” a voice says. “I promise.”

 

❄

 

The ground below him isn’t moving. When his eyes open and his head finally clears, this is the first thing he notices.

The second is that he cannot feel the sun.

His breath catches in his throat and he shoots straight up from the floor, frantically searching around him for some explanation, some understanding. His eyes, so used to darkness, burn at the stark whiteness around him, light reflecting off of every icy surface and shining red behind his eyelids when he tries to squeeze them shut. There’s a gnawing in his gut, right next to something far more potent and familiar—the terror that has his heart and lungs and ribcage locked in a vice grip.

He tries to tell himself to calm down, and it almost works until he remembers he has absolutely every reason to panic. His brain, foggy as it had been the past few times he woke, is working on overdrive now and he cannot deny what he knows must be true:

Somehow, he has ended up a prisoner of the Northern Water Tribe.

He has heard tales—horror stories, really—of the tribesmen up north. Cannibalism, his grandfather had told him once. _Amongst other things. Truly, you do not want to know. Those sav—_

“Yuuri! You’re awake!”

Yuuri starts so violently that the furs on top of him nearly fly off. He realizes, for the first time, that he is naked underneath, the implications flaring in his mind and blood flushing his cheeks.

There, standing across the ice-block room in an ice-block archway, navy-blue curtain pulled back in his hands, is the spirit.

 _No,_ Yuuri corrects himself, half-formed memories floating back to him. _Not a spirit. Viktor._

“Uh. H-hello.”

When the man named Viktor moves, Yuuri cannot keep his eyes from him—not because he fears a threat, but because Viktor glides across the room like water flowing down a stream, every bit of him fluid. His hair floats out behind him in waves, settling over his shoulders when he comes to a stop at Yuuri’s side and sits. The strands are not white as Yuuri originally thought, but instead are shining silver. His long bangs have been woven into two thin, skilled braids and swooped back into a small bun at the crown of his head, falling with the rest of his hair halfway down his back.

His eyes, though— his eyes are exactly as Yuuri remembers, as clear and blue as seawater. They make Viktor’s thin blue robes seem dull by comparison.

“How are you feeling?” Viktor asks, his head cocked to the side. Yuuri takes a moment to attempt to calm his breathing.

“Cold,” he says eventually, and it’s the understatement of the century. What used to be a fire in his chest feels like barely-glowing embers now, unable to keep him warm and threatening to die out at any minute. He is able to feel the sun now, once he concentrates on it, but it is so far away that he can hardly gather any energy.

“Ah, I should get a better fire going, then.” Panic seizes Yuuri’s chest all over again, until he notices Viktor standing and making his way to what must be a hearth on the other end of the room. “Your body will never heal if it still thinks you’re about to freeze to death… hm.” His brow furrows in concentration as he strikes spark-rocks together until a flame finally appears and catches on a log of bleached driftwood. Something lurches in Yuuri’s chest; his fingers curl into fists, and he forces himself to look anywhere but at the flame.

He spots it, then, as his eyes scan the room—a brown drawstring bag, hanging on a hook on the wall.

“Is that…?”

Viktor straightens, looking away from the fire, and winces. “Ah, yes. Sorry. The elders insisted on going through it, when we got back.” He crosses the room, grabbing the bag off of the hook and a pot of water from the ground, placing both at Yuuri’s side. He sits. “I told them they wouldn’t find anything concerning, that you would be a model guest, but well, you understand.”

 _Guest._ Not a prisoner, then, at least until Yuuri screws up or lets something slip. He tugs open the bag, emptying its contents onto his lap. The clothes, the coins—

The ripped, faded, crinkled piece of parchment.

It’s already unfolded; if it weren’t, he may have chosen never to open it again. The smudged ink is still legible, but he almost wishes it weren’t. The characters had been hastily scribbled, slanting with urgency that still sends Yuuri’s heart pounding. There’s no signature—there couldn’t be, to be safe—but in the bottom right corner is a small, hand-drawn heart.

 _Never forget how much we love you,_ the note reads.

She’d had this bag packed for years, clearly. The change of clothes were nearly too small for him, the coins discolored, the long-disintegrated packets of crackers gone stale. But she had written the note that night; he can see the panic in her handwriting just as clearly as he’d heard it in her voice when she dredged him from peaceful sleep and shattered his world in an instant.

_Yuuri wake up, Yuuri listen to me, Yuuri I’m sorry, Yuuri he knows, Yuuri I need you to—_

The memory does not feel altogether much different than his memories of sea-prune stew and meeting Viktor the Not-Spirit: foggy, disjointed, dampened by the knowledge that it couldn’t possibly be real.

But oh, was it real, when he boarded a ship headed to enemy territory in the cover of night and stowed away in a tiny cargo hold that felt like it was closing in on him further with every second; when he felt the ship begin to move and imagined his mother standing on the docks, hand over her heart, never to see him again.

(And his father and Mari too, and Minako, he’d barely even gotten the chance to say—)

“Ah. I’m sorry, do you want me to give you some privacy, I, um…”

Yuuri blinks, startled by the voice, and a tear splashes on the already-waterlogged piece of parchment, right on top of his mother’s hand-drawn heart. He swipes his eyes furiously and folds the note, shoving everything back into the bag as quickly as possible.

“I’m fine.”

At his side, Viktor fidgets. “I’m sorry about whoever you had to leave behind. I hope you get to see them again.”

Yuuri nods, not trusting his voice. His jaw already aches from holding back more tears, but he cannot show weakness in front of this man—at least no more than he already has.

“If you want to talk about it…”

“I’m fine.” Yuuri doesn’t miss the way Viktor’s shoulders deflate at his rejection, and a pang of guilt twists in his stomach along with the gnawing hunger.

Viktor, to his credit, does not seem bothered for long. He shifts his attention to the pot at his side and, in a single, fluid motion, streams the water out into mid-air and lets it surround his hands like gloves.

Yuuri gasps and flinches back before he can even register what has happened—his brain lags far behind his reflexes, his voice even further, but eventually he manages to sputter, “Y-you’re a waterbender!”

Viktor looks just as startled as Yuuri. He draws back, ever so slightly, giving Yuuri some distance. The smile on his face looks slightly forced. “Are you surprised?”

Yuuri swallows. He shouldn’t be surprised, considering he’s currently a ward of the _Northern Water Tribe_ and if he could expect to meet a waterbender anywhere, it would be here, but—

“Ah. Your first time seeing waterbending, then?”

Yuuri, briefly, considers denying it. Would he risk outing himself by telling the truth?

“It’s okay,” Viktor continues. “We’ve kept to ourselves mostly, since we pulled out of the war. I can’t imagine you’d have many opportunities to meet waterbenders in the Earth Kingdom.”

Yuuri swallows. This feels like a trap, somehow. Like he could correct him, like Viktor is testing to _see_ if he’ll correct him, but— no, Viktor didn’t know. He couldn’t know the truth. All they have to go on is the contents of his bag, unambiguously Earth Kingdom, but—

_Have you ever seen the eyes like that, Earth Kingdom my ass—_

Yuuri doesn’t reply to Viktor one way or another, and Viktor doesn’t seem to mind. He’s busy passing the water between his hands, streaming it back and forth and pulling out small flecks of dirt as he does. Yuuri finds himself unable to look away, the movement utterly mesmerizing.

(Another one of his grandfather’s stories comes to mind, unbidden—a waterbender warrior who had drowned a soldier on dry land, streaming water into his lungs until– until…)

“Okay, Yuuri, can you lay back?”

Yuuri jerks, looking up to see Viktor’s gaze intent on him, hands covered once again in purified water, extended slightly toward Yuuri. Every single hair on Yuuri’s body stands straight up. His spine goes ramrod straight.

“Why?”

Viktor blinks. “To heal you, of course!”

“Uh...”

“You don’t remember?

“Don’t remember what?”

“The ship, on the way back here. I explained it then, I thought you were awake, hm.” Viktor frowns. “I’m a waterbending healer, or, well, I’m trying to be. I’m in training. But I promise, I know what I’m doing! You’re in good hands. Literally.”

Yuuri fidgets. “You. You can, um. What? How?” He’s heard of waterbending being used to drown men on dry land, to stab them through with spears of ice, to puncture the hull of a ship and drag it to the depths of the ocean. Once, he even heard a story about a waterbender who learned to control the blood in others’ veins, to force their limbs to move and, ultimately, to boil them from the inside out.

But healing?

Viktor laughs lightly. “Have you never heard of this? I thought our abilities were pretty well known. It’s nothing to worry about, I assure you. Here. There’s one I missed earlier, can I…?”

He’s holding out his hands, still surrounded in floating water, toward Yuuri’s left hand. There’s a small cut on the edge of his pinky, from the storm, he supposes. Clinging desperately to the piece of wood that would become his makeshift life-raft had left his hands completely torn up— but, come to think of it, every other cut has completely disappeared.

Yuuri extends his hand and Viktor takes it in his. There’s a small crease in Viktor’s brow as his eyes narrow in focus, but Yuuri’s gaze is torn from Viktor’s face as he notices something start to glow.

He gasps. The water, it’s the _water,_ glowing a bright white that for a moment he fears will burn his skin. There’s no heat, though, only a tingling chill, and when Viktor’s hands pull the water away, there is nothing on his pinky but perfectly unblemished skin.

 _“Oh,”_ Yuuri breathes, his his wide eyes flickering back and forth between his hand and Viktor’s pleased smile.

“See? All I do is use the water to connect with your chi, and redirect it to help your body heal itself faster. Nothing to worry about at all!”

“Nothing at all,” Yuuri echoes, stunned. “And is this, can you all…?”

“No, only some of us. I guess you could say I’m special,” Viktor replies, and _surely_ Yuuri is hallucinating the wink that follows?

“Um. Right.”

“And like I said, I’m still learning, but Lilia says I’m her best student. Well, she doesn’t necessarily _say_ it, but she heavily implied it at least once. Don’t worry, Yuuri, I’ll have you back in good health in no time!”

And, despite the thousands of questions and uncertainties and fears-bordering-on-terrors bouncing around his mind, Yuuri realizes he believes him.

 

❄

 

That evening, the curtain that functions as a front door rips open, and Yuuri almost jumps out of his makeshift sleeping bag.

“Ugh, I swear, if Yakov makes me do one more basic water whip I am going to jump in the fucking _ocean.”_

A cold gust of wind enters behind a young boy with straw-colored hair. Viktor looks up from the fireplace where he is tending a pot of stew, not startled in the least.

“Ah, you’re home. Dinner is almost ready.”

“I’m serious! Just because these other dimwits take a week to do something I mastered years ago doesn’t mean I have to be subjected to th— oh.” Green eyes, brimming with prepubescent rage, calm slightly as they look down at Yuuri. “Good. You’re awake. Maybe he’ll stop being so fucking insufferable now.”

“I resent that.”

_“Good.”_

“Yuuri, this is my brother, Yuri.”

Yuuri blinks. “Huh?”

“Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but it was my name first, so you have to pick a new one.”

“You’re twelve, Yura, and he’s…” Viktor glances at Yuuri with a question in his eyes.

“Twenty,” Yuuri finishes.

“Right. I think he had the name first.”

“Yeah, but he’s a foreigner, so it doesn’t count.”

Viktor stiffens. “Yura!”

Yuuri isn’t sure why Yuri cares so much, when Viktor clearly already calls him by a nickname, but he does not point this out.

“He knows what I mean.” Yuri waves a dismissive hand, plopping down on the pelt-covered floor and turning to Yuuri. “So, are you an earthbender or what?”

“Um,” Yuuri blinks. “No.”

Yuri’s scoffs. “That’s lame.”

“Um.”

“So what’s the Earth Kingdom like? I’ve heard you have moose-lions the size of _houses,_ is that true? Have you ever seen one?”

“Yura, surely you can think of something better to do than interrogate our guest?” The kill-them-with-kindness smile on Viktor’s face is blinding. “Perhaps letting Makkachin back in for dinner? She’s been outside for hours.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

Yuri disappears, Viktor spoons the soup into three bowls, and for a few minutes silence reigns. No one else, it seems, will be joining them—no parents or grandparents or other siblings Yuuri has yet to meet. This ice-block house must be home to just the two of them.

(Yuuri swallows back so many questions.)

When Yuri returns, there’s a giant ball of fluffy, light brown fur bounding after him. The animal just barely avoids knocking over their dinner as she skids across the floor toward Yuuri, who barely has time to brace himself before getting a face full of fur and wet nose and slobbery tongue.

“Makkachin, _down!”_ Viktor orders, reaching out to pull the animal off of Yuuri. “I’m sorry, Yuuri, she’s usually so well behaved. But she must really like you! That’s a good sign.”

“It’s okay,” Yuuri replies weakly, heart still pounding away in his chest. “I like animals.”

“Good! You probably don’t have polar-bear dogs where you come from, right?”

“No,” Yuuri agrees, and reaches out to pet behind her ear. Her fur is warm and soft and her puppy-eyes the size of saucers. “She’s beautiful, though.”

“I think so, too! She was the runt of the litter, when she was born her fur was brown just like it is now. They say she would have died if she were in the wild because she can’t blend in with the snow, but it’s okay, because she has me!”

“It’s perfect,” Yuri grunts in between mouthfuls of stew. “She’s got freaky hair, you’ve got freaky hair…”

Viktor smiles. “Both of our hair is beautiful.”

“It is.”

It takes Yuuri a moment to register his own voice, and his cheeks burn red almost instantly. Viktor clutches his chest and Yuri chokes on his dinner.

“Thank you, Yuuri! I get it from my mother.”

 _“Ew,_ I take it back, Earth-boy, go back to sleep.”

Yuuri hides his face behind his bowl. The stew is pleasantly hot and tastes surprisingly decent, at least compared to whatever disgusting concoction he vaguely remembers Viktor spoon-feeding him on the boat.

“What is in this?”

“Mm, tiger-seal meat, mostly. Some spices, nothing special.”

“It’s good,” Yuuri admits.

“It’s my favorite! Good after a long day in the cold for Yura, and you’re still shivering, so I figured it might help you warm up.”

“I am?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Yuuri holds out his hand and, sure enough, sees his fingers tremble. “Oh.”

“That’s your healing strategy, O Master Healer? _Soup?”_

Viktor shrugs. “Fluids are important.”

“Waterbending not working, then?”

“It’s an ongoing process.”

“Right. And this _ongoing process_ means Yakov’s pissed at you for skipping and he’s taking it out on me, so you better get on with it.”

“Hm. You see, Yuuri,” Viktor begins, his voice perfectly measured. “Not everyone has respect for what I do.”

“I have plenty of _respect,_ I just think it’s a waste of time.”

“You didn’t seem to think it was a waste of time when Lilia fixed you up after you accidentally sliced your forearm open with your own ice spear.”

There’s a rehearsed quality to their argument, like they’ve had it hundreds of times already.

“That was different.”

“Because I am a man.”

 _“No,_ because you’re wasting time you could be practicing waterbending—”

“This is waterbending.”

“I’m talking about fighting! There’s a fucking _war,_ Viktor, and for all we know we might get dragged back into it and all you want to do is either use waterbending to heal people or to _dance._ ”

Yuuri’s back goes ramrod straight. The idea seizes him instantly: Viktor on a stage, his hair flowing out behind him as he spins, water streaming through the air in time with his willowy movements. Their technique and style is probably different from anything Yuuri has learned, and he wants so badly to witness it.

“You dance, too. Yakov dances—”

“That’s not my point!”

“Yura, it is quite rude to argue in front of guests, wouldn’t you agree?”

The room goes so quiet Yuuri can hear his heartbeat along with Makkachin’s panting. One beat, two beat, three—

“Fine. I’m done. Thanks for dinner.” Yuri tosses a look at Yuuri, eyes half-hidden under his bangs. “Glad you’re awake, I guess. Sorry you gotta deal with him.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” is all Yuuri can think of to respond.

After Yuri disappears through the archway that leads to the two bedrooms, Viktor lets out a sigh.

“I am sorry about my brother. He is young.” There’s a flash of sadness in Viktor’s eyes. “And always angry.”

Yuuri wants to badly to ask, but he bites his tongue. “No, I understand.”

“At any rate, you should get more sleep. To help you regain your strength. Is that robe thick enough?”

Yuuri looks down at the fur-lined garment Viktor had brought him earlier, colored brown and dark blue and cinched in front of him with a belt. _So I can keep healing you,_ Viktor had explained when Yuuri eyed the robe warily. He finds it comfortable now, though, if not a bit drafty. How do these people possibly stay warm?

“It’s fine.”

“Well, let me know if you need more blankets!” Viktor insists, gathering the bowls and rinsing them in the bucket of water in the corner of the room. The water streams effortlessly with each movement of his hands, and Yuuri can’t look away.

“I will.”

“And come get me if you need anything. I would give you my room, of course, but the living space is the only room with a fireplace and you need to stay warm, so…”

“Don’t worry about it, I…” Yuuri swallows, his eyes darting away from Viktor—this unbelievably gorgeous and undeservedly kind man whose robes and eyes and snow-white skin are all the colors of the enemy. “Thank you. For what you’re doing, you don’t have to and…”

“Yuuri,” Viktor replies, and even from across the room there’s something about his smile that makes Yuuri feel warmer than any smoldering fire ever could. “Of course.”

He sleeps easy, after that.

 

❄

 

“Your chi is strange, Yuuri.”

There’s concern in Viktor’s voice and the creases of his brow. It’s not exactly reassuring, coming from the man currently using his powers to reach into Yuuri’s body and make it heal itself.

“It is?”

“Mm,” Viktor nods. Yuuri tries not to look down at the water glowing on his bare chest, right above his heart. “Usually, chi pathways are like rivers, at least that’s how I like to think of them. The energy and life flows out to every part of your body. But yours, it feels like…” Viktor shakes his head. “They feel dried up. Like a drought. At first, I thought maybe it was because of the dehydration, but that was silly, because it hasn’t gotten any better.” His hands trail down from Yuuri’s chest to his stomach, the tingling sensation making Yuuri’s hair stand on edge. “Besides, the more I concentrate, the less your chi feels like water at all.”

Panic curls at the corners of Yuuri’s vision and tightens in his chest. His inner-fire, that is what he has always called it—it’s how the fire sages, his grandfather, and his mother all referred to that life force deep within whose flames powered their bodies, their minds, their spirits. His inner-fire, that Yuuri felt dwindling down to nothing all those days adrift on an ocean of ice, that has been barely more than a few smoldering embers ever since.

“What does it feel like?” Yuuri asks, his throat constricting around the question. All this time, that is what Viktor has been doing, reaching into his chest expecting liquid chi and tugging at his barely-burning inner-fire instead. He must not know. He must have no idea what to make of it, because he’s still here attempting to heal Yuuri instead of throwing him before the tribal elders as their enemy in the flesh.

No, Viktor hasn’t figured it out yet. Yuuri prays, silently and perhaps futilely, that he never will.

“It doesn’t matter,” Viktor replies, waving the question away. “What matters is figuring out how to restore it. I told you earlier that I heal by manipulating chi, but if there is hardly any, it is… very difficult.”

Yuuri can read the exhaustion in Viktor’s unfocused eyes and tense muscles. “You don’t have to. I will figure something out, you don’t need to—”

“And what kind of healer would I be then, Yuuri?” Viktor chuckles weakly. “No, I am going to help you fix this.”

Yuuri has been cold down to the bone for so long that he almost forgets what it was like to be warm. The hot-spring baths of home, the humming heat in his veins as he finishes dance practice, it all feels so far away, memories that belong to a version of himself who never knew what it was like to feel his inner-fire dying out as he froze to death alone in the middle of the ocean. He had burned through everything he had just to stay alive those few days, the sun’s energy getting weaker the farther north he drifted, unable to replenish even a fraction of what he had lost.

His body is starved without what it needs to replenish itself—and still, knowing this, Yuuri refuses to even attempt to stoke the fire himself.

Viktor pulls his hands away, exhaustion written plain on his face. The glowing water turns translucent again as Viktor streams it back into the bucket. Yuuri’s bare chest looks the same as always. His skin is not even wet.

“Viktor?”

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you want to fight?”

Viktor’s spine straightens, and for a moment Yuuri feels almost guilty. The smile on his face, still, is nothing but perfectly pleasant. Yuuri does not trust it.

“I waterbend because it is beautiful. But what beauty is there in violence? In the struggle to dominate over someone else?”

Yuuri sits up, tugging his robe closed and tying the knot at his waist. “Maybe it’s not beautiful,” Yuuri agrees, “but some people might say it’s necessary.”

“Yura would,” Viktor agrees. “But he is young. He was only three when our tribe fought its last battle. I’m sure you can imagine how devastating it was for us. Why we retreated into isolation after that. He doesn’t remember.”

That smile is still perfectly curved on Viktor’s lips, and it looks wrong. Yuuri was right not to trust it.

“Your homeland has been the battleground for most of this war, Yuuri, so I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how terrible the aftermath was. There were so many injured. We needed healers, I was fifteen, and it was something I could do. And then I grew to love it, because there is a lot of beauty in healing. So I decided to stick with it. No matter what people said about me. Being a man.”

Yuuri’s own nation has its fair share of flaws, he will be the first to admit that, but it never fails to surprise him how the rest of the world divides itself so sharply along gendered lines. The next in line for the Fire Nation’s throne is a woman. Yuuri’s childhood physicians and schoolteachers were men. The Northern Water Tribe, it seems, does not operate the same way.

“Is beauty why you dance, then?” Yuuri asks.

Viktor stands, carrying the bucket of water to the corner and placing it down gently. When he turns back, the smile on his face has changed to one more genuine. It makes Yuuri’s heart flutter hopelessly.

“There’s nothing as beautiful as dancing. How it looks, how it _feels…”_

Yuuri can feel phantom movements rippling through his muscles. “Yes,” he replies, with more longing than intended.

Viktor’s eyes go wide, his whole body pitching toward Yuuri as if he can’t help himself. “You dance too?”

“I, well. I am not very good.”

“I’m sure you’re lovely! Yuuri! Once you’ve regained your strength, we should dance together!”

Yuuri swallows loudly, imagining his own clumsy movements next to Viktor’s, which he can only imagine would be perfect, ethereal, as smooth and graceful as flowing water. “Okay.”

“Perfect!” Viktor grins as if there’s nothing he’d like more in the world, and he looks so much like his healing water in that moment, glowing from the inside out.

 

❄

 

Master Yakov is the kind of man that Yuuri had always imagined when he pictured a waterbender—a square jaw, thick eyebrows, wide shoulders and a fierce, permanent-looking scowl. It strikes fear down to Yuuri’s core seeing the man towering in the entranceway, shouting Viktor’s name like he’s either a petulant child or a delinquent criminal.

Viktor’s face stretches into a grin and he stands, going to the archway to greet the man.

“Ah, Yakov! It’s good to see you!”

“Don’t _Yakov_ me, you ridiculous boy! I haven’t seen you in a _week._ Are you ever going to return to training, or are you just planning on wasting away?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Yakov shoots Yuuri a look that is half contempt, half suspicion.

“I don’t see why you are so concerned,” Viktor dismisses with a tight smile. “I will come back eventually.”

“Will you? I’m starting to doubt that,” Yakov scoffs.

“Well, unfortunately, Yuuri—have you met Yuuri, by the way?—still requires a lot of attention. I’m not able to heal him as quickly as I had hoped.”

“Which is why you should have just taken him to Lilia in the first place. It’s her job to do these things, she’s more than capable and you hardly know what the hell you’re doing—”

“Yuuri stays with me,” Viktor interrupts, and something dark flashes under the sea of his eyes, there and gone in an instant. “It is good practice. Besides, Yuuri likes it here. Don’t you, Yuuri?”

“Uh.” Yuuri clears his throat. “Um, yes.”

“Then it’s settled! I’ll return to training once Yuuri is back in good health again. Is there anything else you need, or did you just come to yell at me?”

“Vitya,” Yakov sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m just looking out for you.”

“I know!” Viktor chirps.

“Alright then.” Yakov turns on his heel, and heads back toward the front entrance. “Tell Yura not to be late again tomorrow. He has to work on the water whip. He’s been neglecting his basics.” Then, he spares a glance and a curt nod toward Yuuri. “Nice to meet you.”

And then he’s gone.

“So,” Viktor begins almost instantly. “What do you want for dinner?”

 

❄

 

As springtime marches on, the days grow progressively longer and Yuuri finds, whether it’s due to the season or his imagination or the slow process of acclimation, that he feels closer to the sun. Its weak rays feel stronger, if only marginally, and Yuuri hopes that as summer approaches his inner-fire will slowly go back to normal.

Despite this, Yuuri does not notice much of a change. He still feels cold, like there’s a block of black ice sitting on his chest, the embers of his inner-fire hopeless to melt it on their own. Viktor, after a week of little improvement, goes back to training—Yuuri managed to convince him that it did no good to sit around the house with Yuuri if he can only spend a few hours a day trying to heal him anyhow. He tries his best, but there’s little he can do, and Yuuri makes him stop when he sees the telltale sign of fatigue pulling at his mouth.

Something has to give, and so Yuuri starts meditating.

With Viktor and Yuri training, the house is quiet during the day save for Makkachin’s occasional barking. She curls up at Yuuri’s side when he attempts to meditate, and he finds that listening to her soft breathing is an easy way to ground himself. He crosses his legs before him, puts his hands on his knees, and lets his eyes fall closed, focusing on the distant energy of the sun with all of his might.

It would help, of course, if he could do this out in the actual sunlight, but he has yet to leave Viktor’s home and he certainly isn’t going to venture out without him. He is in an unfamiliar city surrounded by people who would gladly throw him back to the ocean if they knew the truth he guarded so carefully, and so he stays inside.

It is hard, though, to focus on the sun when there is something else so temptingly close. The burning pieces of driftwood in the fireplace call out to Yuuri with every flicker of flame, and he tries to shut it out, _tries_ to little avail, and in the end he just opens his eyes feeling more exhausted than when he started.

He is very good at meditating, usually. It was almost all his mother let him do, those nights he snuck into her room in the cover of darkness. Just like dancing, it helps him center himself and tune out the static of his ever-present anxiety. He wishes he had the strength to dance now, instead of sitting uselessly on his fur-lined sleeping bag and failing to do even the most basic of meditation exercises.

In truth, Yuuri knows what he needs. It’s what he’s always needed, those nights when it felt like the world was closing in and even dancing and basic meditation didn’t help. To truly ground himself he needed to feel a connection, some energy to hold onto instead of drifting aimlessly, anchorlessly as he had ever since the shipwreck. He knows what he needs but he resists, clinging to the fear that blooms—has _always_ bloomed—in his chest whenever he considers it.

But some things are worse than fear. Ultimately, Yuuri finds that this hopeless, endless chill is one of them.

Yuuri waits until he is sure Viktor has left for the day before settling himself down cross-legged in front of the fireplace. Makkachin nestles down next to him with a contented sigh, and for a moment he wonders if he should try to put her in Viktor’s room, so there will be no witnesses to what he’s about to do. He banishes the thought. Silly. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

The fire is there, right in front of him, and he can feel the heat on his skin. Now, for the first time, he allows himself to feel _more_. He opens himself up, letting the fire reach out to him and reaching back to meet it.

His hands are still glued to his knees, a solid foot between himself and the flames, but the fire’s energy fills his chest with long-awaited warmth. As Yuuri breathes it in, letting the energy feed the fire within him, the flames in the hearth climb upwards and the embers in his chest begin to glow.

Still, it’s not enough—it’s a tease, the brush of a warm hand on touch-starved skin and he wants so much more. He knows he shouldn’t, he _knows_ and his mind and his mother are telling him to stop, begging him, but there’s nothing more dangerous than the will of a desperate man.

He keeps his eyes shut but extends a shaking hand, his fingers only inches from the flames, and he gathers his courage and pulls a small piece of fire into himself. He holds it close and opens his eyes, staring mesmerized as it flickers in his palms.

And here is what it feels like: a heartbeat, a miniature sun, like life and the first true bit of warmth Yuuri has held in a long time. Like air to a drowning man, water to castaway about to die of thirst.

There’s a familiar terror in his chest right alongside the warmth and that melting block of ice, but it’s nothing compared to the thrill of the long-awaited fire in his hands. He feels grounded, centered, energized all at once. He breathes deeper and the flame in his palms expands with each inhale, shrinks with each exhale, and he feels his inner-fire begin to do the same. It was how every clandestine lesson with his mother started—meditation, just like this, breathing exercises, and as he got older even some self-defense techniques.

With every single flame that flickered from his fingers had come a warning—that no one could ever see, no one could ever know, that nothing was more important than this.

And they didn’t know. Yuuri became very good at hiding.

But Yuuri also took risks, risks he knows—and knew, even then—that would terrify his mother. Still, what was he to do, on those nights when the darkness closed in on him and everything was spinning out of control and dancing didn’t work? How could he be expected to stay strong, to not give in, to not tuck himself away in the back of his closet and bring the smallest of flames into his palms? Those night, he wrestled with guilt just as he did his anxiety. And here he is now, in arguably more danger than he had ever been back home, falling back into that same bad habit.

But it helps, and Yuuri is so tired of being cold. In a foreign land, his body half-dead and his spirit dwindling, what does he have but this?

 

❄

 

When Viktor returns home that evening, he brings his watery hands to Yuuri’s chest and smiles as wide as the sun.

“Yuuri! Your chi!”

Yuuri schools his expression very, very carefully. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, it’s much better! There’s more energy, and it’s still not back to what it should be, but… What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri shrugs. “Maybe I’m just getting stronger.”

For just a moment, suspicion runs clear in Viktor’s eyes. Then it disappears, covered up by that perfect, if somewhat tight, smile. “That’s wonderful, Yuuri. Hopefully you’ll keep getting stronger. I’ll be able to do so much more for you now.”

And he does. The soothing, tingling sensation is much more pronounced now as Viktor reaches into Yuuri’s chest with his waterbending and coaxes Yuuri’s chi this way and that. Yuuri keeps his eyes fixed on Viktor’s face for any sign of unease, any indication that his fire-like chi has given him away, but no—Viktor focuses on healing Yuuri, and that is that.

“Viktor, your mutt wants to go out,” Yuri grumbles from where he’s reclined in the corner of the living area, a waterbending scroll spread out before him. It feels like an hour has passed.

Viktor blinks, his focus breaking from Yuuri’s chest and the glowing water returning to normal. “I suppose we’ve made enough progress for one night.” Returning the water to the bucket, he pats his hands against his legs and cooes at his polar-bear dog. “Mm, Makkachin, do you want to go for a walk? Yes?”

Makkachin, upon hearing the word _walk,_ bounds over to Viktor and woofs. Viktor laughs, and Yuuri’s chest suddenly grows tight.

“Would you like to accompany us, Yuuri? I’m sure you’re tired of being cooped up here, and now that you’re regaining your strength, stretching your legs will do you good."

“I don’t want to impose—”

“Nonsense! Healer’s orders!” And then he winks, and Yuuri is terribly, incredibly weak.

“Okay.”

Yuuri’s legs feel like jelly and there’s an ache in every muscle, but he refuses to hold on to Viktor like a child. He walks slowly, carefully, and soon enough he finds his balance.

Though Yuuri has certainly stood up and walked around since he arrived here, he has never ventured beyond the front curtain. He had wondered what the tribe might look like, imagining perhaps a ring of huts and a massive expanse of tundra to the north.

He was definitely not expecting a city.

The Northern Water Tribe’s complexity and beauty rivals the Fire Nation capital city in every way. Even from just outside Viktor’s home on the easternmost side of the settlement, Yuuri can see enough to leave him stunned—the intricate system of canals and sidewalks, the precise architecture of the ice-block homes, the way the entire city has been built nestled into a towering glacier whose steep cliffs encircle and protect the inhabitants. To the north, at the apex of the city, is a stately temple; to the south, between the tribe and the vast ocean, a magnificent gate.

“Wow.”

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

_“Wow.”_

This late, there are few people out on the sidewalks, but still they keep close to the city’s edge. Makkachin trots happily alongside them, glancing down every now and then into the canals when a fish catches her eye. The pale moonlight bounces off of every icy surface, giving the entire street a celestial glow.

“It’s a full moon,” Viktor observes, holding his arms out as if basking in the rays.

“It’s lovely.”

“Yes,” Viktor agrees. “We’re most powerful on nights like tonight, you know.”

Coming from anyone else, any other waterbender, this sentence might have coiled fear in Yuuri’s gut. But it is Viktor, and Yuuri watches his every movement with wonder. The waterbender reaches down and draws a patch of snow from the ground, bringing it into his hands. One palm above, one palm below, Viktor solidifies the floating snow into ice and fashions from it a clear flower. The petals sparkle like diamond in the moonlight.

“Here,” Viktor says, and offers his piece of art to Yuuri, who hesitates. The delicate ice will surely melt the second it hits his hands.

But Viktor persists, and Yuuri blinks in surprise when the cold ice sits upon his palms and stays perfectly formed, perfectly beautiful, perfect. Yuuri stutters out a breath.

Seconds later, Makkachin collides into the back of Yuuri’s legs and sends the flower flying into the canal.

“Don’t worry, Yuuri! I can make you a whole bouquet when we get home.”

They walk in silence for a while, listening to the quiet of the city. Their footsteps crunch below them, Makkachin pants at their sides, a couple has a hushed conversation a few streets over, and if Yuuri concentrates very hard, he can almost hear the hum of the ocean.

“I can’t imagine what this place must look like to you,” Viktor muses. “I mean, you grew up somewhere warm. Somewhere _green.”_

For Yuuri, home is a volcanic island chain that hugs the equator and has never seen a flake of snow since its formation, so he can’t help but agree. “It is strange,” he admits, looking up at Viktor. The moonlight catches on his silver hair at every angle, and Yuuri’s eyes trace the swoop of his braided bangs, the icy waterfall of strands down his back. Viktor stands tall, proud, captivating. Yuuri sucks in a breath. “But it is very beautiful,” he says.

Viktor, perhaps, notices the embarrassing reverence in Yuuri’s voice, because he glances over with a curious expression. Their eyes meet, and a lovely blush spreads across Viktor’s cheeks and nose.

“Ah,” he says, though it sounds half choked. Yuuri blushes too, and looks away. “Well. There’s something very beautiful about this night, isn’t there?”

Yuuri can feel Viktor’s eyes on him, can hear the true meaning behind the words, and it’s almost too much. He keeps his gaze fixed on the sidewalk before them and on Makkachin’s wagging tail. Viktor, eventually, looks away.

“Do you ever want to leave?”

Viktor’s step falters slightly, but he recovers. “Leave?”

Yuuri shrugs. “You’re so sequestered, up here. Do you ever feel…?”

“Trapped?”

It’s not exactly what Yuuri meant, but he nods.

“Sometimes,” Viktor admits. “I thought about it a lot, when I was first starting to learn healing. People did not always understand. They still don’t, but they have let it go by now, I think.”

“Because they think healers should only be women?”

“And that warriors should only be men. I have a friend, Mila, she’s… She’s faced something similar, since Yakov agreed to take her on.”

“But you train with Yakov, too.”

“Mostly for dance,” Viktor admits. “But… yes. I’m still a warrior, I suppose. As long as I am allowed to learn healing as well, I don’t really mind it.”

Yuuri frowns. “I don’t understand why they care so much.”

“Things must be quite different where you come from, Yuuri,” Viktor muses. “Perhaps if I were a _bad_ waterbending warrior, they would not mind.”

“You are good?”

A stale, heart-shaped smile stretches across Viktor’s lips. “The best the tribe has ever seen!”

“Ah.”

“That’s why they let me lead supply expeditions. Like the one we were on when I found you.” He laughs softly. “I suppose it’s not all a bad thing, then. If it led me to you.”

Yuuri has no idea what to say to that. Not a clue.

“But no. To answer your question. I don’t feel very trapped anymore. At least not as much as Yura does.”

“Yuri?”

Viktor chuckles. “In case you haven’t noticed from how much he interrogates you about the Earth Kingdom, he wants very badly to see the world. Your arrival here is the most exciting thing that has happened to him in years.”

Yuuri feel a small tug of fondness when he thinks of Viktor’s little brother. It’s slightly baffling, that someone who does so much _yelling_ could worm his way so easily into Yuuri’s heart.

“I understand that,” Yuuri admits, and there’s a part of his brain telling him to shut up, shut _up,_ but Yuuri has recently gotten very good at ignoring that little voice. “I spent my whole life convinced I would never be allowed to leave home. Now, I suppose, I can never go back.”

Shut up, shut _up—_

“Things change so quickly,” Viktor agrees, his mouth pressed into a firm line and gaze fixed into the distance. “That last battle… Well. Yura and I, we both lost a lot.”

“Your parents,” Yuuri whispers, barely even audible. Still, Viktor hears. He swallows.

“Yes. We do not even have the same mother but we both..."

“I’m sorry.”

Viktor waves a hand. “You shouldn’t apologize for something that wasn’t your fault, Yuuri.”

There’s a terrible pang in Yuuri’s stomach. He cannot imagine Viktor’s loss. Sure, Yuuri may never see his parents or his sister again, but at least he knows they are out there, happy and alive and moving on from him. But Viktor and Yuri, their family is gone. Taken from them. Yuuri feels sick.

God, if they knew who—

“Besides,” Viktor continues, interrupting Yuuri’s spiraling train of thought, “it seems the war has taken a great deal from you, too.”

Yuuri heart sits high in his throat. “It has taken something from everybody.”

“Do you think it will be over soon?”

Yuuri has never lived a day of his life in a world at peace. Neither have his mother or father. Neither has his grandfather. The war is a terrible, unending constant.

“I’m not sure,” Yuuri sighs. Knowing who sits on his nation’s throne, who wears the crown of the Firelord and who has used that power to raze homes and towns and lives to the ground, peace feels like an impossible, impractical dream.

“It is a nice thought though, isn’t it?”

Yuuri hums. He imagines boarding a ship, docking in his homeland, walking off that plank and seeing his family again. He imagines feeling their arms around him like he knows he never will again. “It is,” he agrees, and then banishes the thought from his head. Dwelling on impossibilities will only leave him feeling empty inside.

“Do you want to circle back?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri nods, and they follow Makkachin home.

 

❄

 

They say that Prince Yuuri of the Fire Nation was born with the Spark.

Twenty years ago, this rumor swept the nation. The Firelord’s daughter, heir to the throne, had finally produced a viable heir for herself—a baby boy with a strong cry and rich amber eyes that held fire within them. Her first child, though also strong, would never produce flame, and so it was onto the shoulders of this baby boy that the expectations of a nation, of a centuries-long lineage of supremacy and conquest, were firmly laid.

But Prince Yuuri, like his mother and unlike his grandfather, was impossibly gentle.

The years ticked by, the baby turning into a toddler turning into a child, and not once did he produce a flame. The Firelord sent his best instructors who tried every tactic the Sages had heard of to coax Yuuri into bending, but the harder they pressed the more nervous he became. At night, as she tucked her son into bed, Crown Princess Hiroko would remind him that, even if he wasn’t a firebender, she and his father would love him just the same. She let him take dance lessons instead.

His grandfather was another story, but he had always been a cruel man. The day the Firelord stopped taking an interest in Prince Yuuri’s life was only a loss for one of them.

Yuuri does not like to think of the day he finally, _finally_ did it.

It was an accident, and he was ten, at least twice the age of his mother when she created her first fire. He had run to her immediately, his heart beating out of his chest in time with the flickering of the flames he guarded in his hands and presented to her with wide, beaming eyes.

He had not expected the horror that crossed her face the second she saw, or that she would pull him out of the hallway and into a side-room and lock the door immediately.

“Yuuri,” she whispered, laying her hands over his outstretched palms and smothering the fire. “I am so proud of you. I am. But you need to listen to me, alright?”

Yuuri nodded. His mother’s fingers squeezed his own.

“No one can ever know.”

“But I—”

“Yuuri.”

“But—”

_“Yuuri.”_

His heart had felt like it was crumbling out of his chest. “Why?”

His mother, at least, looked like her heart was doing the same.

“There are things that the Firelord will expect from you if he finds out you are a firebender, Yuuri. Things he will expect you to be, to _do,_ and he will not take no for an answer.” Gently, gently, she tucks a short strand of hair behind his ear. “I do not want that for you. _You_ do not want that. Do you understand?”

The prince hadn’t. He nodded anyway.

That night, he had the first of what would become a recurring nightmare. There he was, standing in the middle of the central square of the capital city, a flame held proud in his hand; and there they were, a mob of people shouting and screaming and closing in on him from every direction. He put out the flame, but it was too late. They had seen, and they were coming, and they always caught him in the end.

The last face he would see before he woke up was his grandfather’s.

He channeled all of his energy, from that moment on, into classical dance. Minako was the most renowned teacher in all of the Fire Nation, perhaps all of the world, and she showed her love by pushing Yuuri to his limits. On a good day, it would scratch the itch that had set in beneath Yuuri’s skin. He could almost deny that he needed anything else.

And on the bad days, well. He always made sure to close his bedroom door, then his bathroom door, then the closet door, and wait for the middle of the night to even dare to try.

When his mother found out—because of course she found out—he cried for hours in her arms. She listened, petted his hair, and came up with a compromise. Twice a week, he would come to his parents’ bedroom in the middle of the night, and twice a week she would teach him the basics where no one could find out. It was just breathing exercises at first, and tons of meditation to tune his entire body to the pulse of the flame. Eventually, he graduated to basic self-defense techniques—whichever ones existed in a predominantly offensive bending tradition.

He hid, and he danced, and he convinced himself it was enough.

Nothing, though, can remain hidden forever. He still doesn’t know how it happened; his mother had had time to say so very little, the night she smuggled him onto a boat bound for the Fire Nation colonies on the eastern shore of the Earth Kingdom.

And then, a storm.

And then, a makeshift raft and north-bound currents.

And then Prince Yuuri of the Fire Nation is a ward of the Northern Water Tribe, sitting facing the wall in a sleeping, ice-block house in the dead of night, his skin buzzing and the world closing in and his breath coming in barely-controlled gasps.

This is the first time this has happened since his arrival here, and he supposes he should be grateful. All he can think, though, is of the man and the boy sleeping just on the other side of that curtain, and the city of water tribesmen sleeping outside this house, and the absolute panic burning in his veins, desperate to come out as fire.

Yuuri knows of only one way to stop this. He has tried to deny himself of it before and let the attack escalate, and never in his life had he been more convinced that he was going to die.

So he sits facing the wall, legs crossed in front of him and palms facing skyward on his lap, and summons the tiniest of flames, so small it barely casts light beyond him. He focuses, breathes, focuses, breathes.

And then, just as the panic starts to abate:

“Yuuri?”

The fire is squashed instantaneously in his fist, but when Yuuri turns around to find Viktor in the archway, curtain pulled back in one hand, he knows he’s made a grave mistake. Viktor’s eyes are blown wide. Seeing. Knowing, without a doubt.

Prince Yuuri is standing in the middle of a square in the capital city, a piece of fire in his hands, and he does not need to wait to know what happens next. Real-life Yuuri lurches to his feet, not even stopping to put on shoes or to sling a coat over his thin robe—

And he runs.  


 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you are enjoying it so far. The story is going to have three chapters and an epilogue. I'm almost done writing the second chapter, so that should be posted soon!
> 
> I also made a quick sketch of Watertribe!Viktor's hair loopies if you want to check it out [here](https://stammiviktor.tumblr.com/post/181311533449/a-quick-sketch-of-viktor-from-my-atla-au-all) :) 
> 
> Please let me know what you thought!! I'm so excited to finally share this with you all.
> 
> _find me on tumblr at_[stammiviktor](https://stammiviktor.tumblr.com/)  
>  _you can also find my a:tla fanfics under penname_ [monpetitpois](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monpetitpois/works)!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you so much to Rachel for beta-ing and Ollie for your brilliant, supportive feedback <3 This chapter got a teensy, weensy bit out of hand so it’s longer than intended. I’m bending (heh) the atla canon a bit with this chapter, but it’s a quite loose AU anyhow so bear with me :) Hope you enjoy!
> 
> (Also: can a society with strict gender roles/sexism also have no homophobia? Debatable. But pls roll with it, because our boys have to deal with enough.)

Static crashes like ocean waves in his head, blocking out everything but the icy terrain below his feet and the ocean in the distance. Yuuri hardly notices as the ground slices into his bare soles, as his weakened lungs and atrophied legs scream, as someone calls his name out from behind him.

He sprints along the edge of the city, staying close to the bluff that encircles the settlement. Mercifully, everyone is already asleep in their homes; there is nothing but a clear, downhill path from Viktor’s home to the city gates. A structure comes into view where the land meets the sea, and Yuuri forces his legs to speed up—a boathouse, surely it’s a boathouse.

The escape plan forms so quickly in his mind that he wonders if he has spent the past month subconsciously preparing for this moment. The larger ships would be impossible to operate on his own even if he knew how, and were likely valuable enough to warrant sending others after him. A canoe, though, like the ones that navigate the city’s narrow canals, wouldn’t be missed. Maybe if he gets far enough before the rest of the tribesman are alerted, they won’t bother going after him.

His gut twists at the prospect; he still remembers very vividly what it felt like to float alone on the open ocean, helpless, starving, and waiting to die.

Still, it is better than the alternative.

The boathouse gets closer and closer but so do the heavy footfalls behind him. He cannot help but spare a glance over his shoulder and his heart nearly stops—Viktor is not far off from him now, and gaining quickly.

“Yuuri!” he hisses, and Yuuri wonders briefly why he doesn’t scream it. Other tribesmen would wake, come outside to see the commotion, and help him restrain Yuuri. Viktor should be yelling at the top of his lungs.

Yuuri’s trance is broken, his legs and lungs and feet on fire and his vision going blurry with panic. He nearly trips on an uneven patch of ground but recovers, and keeps running.

“Yuuri!”

He keeps running. The boathouse is close, closer—

“Yuuri, please, just—!”

—closer—

“Yuuri, _stop!”_

And then, between Yuuri and his escape, springs a solid wall of ice.

He skids to a stop, very nearly running straight into the new obstacle. He does not even have to think before surrounding his hands in orange fire that stands out against the navy-blue northern night; he extends his arms, throwing the fire with all his might and—

It fizzles out.

Again, he tries again, but there is no sun and his chi is weak and his fire dies before it hits the wall. If he had time, maybe, he could stand with his hands pressed directly up against the ice and slowly melt it away to nothing— but he doesn’t have time. He glances behind him to find that Viktor has stopped running, too, barely ten feet away and blocking Yuuri’s only other escape. His chest is heaving. There’s nowhere to run.

Yuuri’s vision grows blurrier by the second and he cannot stop shaking. He turns around to face Viktor but keeps his hands pressed behind him against the wall, summoning all of his fire while he begs.

“Please, Viktor, please just let me go.”

There’s something wild in Viktor’s eyes. “Yuuri, you can’t—”

“Just a few minutes, that’s all I need. A head start, that’s all, _please.”_ Yuuri’s voice is cracked, his body heaving. He looks pathetic, he knows, but Viktor is a merciful man and maybe... “I’ll take a canoe and you’ll never see me again, I _promise,_ I’m not—” He gasps for air. “I don’t—”

The ugly, desperate fire in his chest roars, and Yuuri presses himself closer to the wall, the furthest he can be from this man who has every right to throw him to the lion-vultures—who stands there, back straight, his moonlight-colored hair hanging disheveled over his shoulders, yet again about to decide Yuuri’s fate. His expression is even and impossibly calm.

“You can’t do that, Yuuri.”

The words slice at Yuuri’s chest, his last vestiges of hope bleeding out from the wound.

“Please… I— they—” His chest heaves and the mantra that has echoed in his head for a decade slips from his mouth, “No one can know, no one can know, they can’t, I— _Please.”_

“Yuuri, you don’t even have any supplies, there’s no way you’ll make it—”

_“I know!”_

Behind Yuuri, the wall is halfway melted beneath his hands; in front of him stands Viktor, who recoils as if he’s been slapped. Yuuri continues.

“You have to let me go Viktor, please.”

“I… I can’t let you— I’m not going to...” Viktor’s voice is soft, half drowned out by the roaring in Yuuri’s ears. He looks so tired. “Yuuri, please, if I were going to turn you in, I would have gone to the chief a month ago.”

The roaring gets louder for a moment, then quiets. The fire dies out from Yuuri’s hands, the half-melted wall forgotten. The night feels suddenly, painfully silent save for his own ragged breathing.

“...What?”

Viktor takes a step forward, then another, and Yuuri flinches but does not move. “I wouldn’t do that to you, not even back then when I first found out. But now? Now that I know you? Yuuri, I could _never.”_

Yuuri blinks. “I don’t understand.”

“So you’re a firebender.” Viktor shrugs as if the word means nothing; as if that very sentence hasn’t been the subject of Yuuri’s nightmares for a decade now. “I didn’t know that when I found you, but would anything have been different if I had? Even if you’d been had the Fire Nation emblem tattooed across your forehead, what could I have done? Leave you to die?”

“You wouldn’t have,” Yuuri admits in a whisper. He has learned enough about Viktor and the bleeding heart on his sleeve to know that for certain.

( _Yet you really thought he would turn you in without a second thought?_ a voice in his head mocks.)

Viktor shrugs. “Your chi felt like fire. So what? What difference does that make, in the end?”

Something about this answer is unacceptable. Yuuri digs in his heels. “The Fire Nation killed your parents.”

It’s designed to hurt, meant to be fuel to the fire Yuuri knows must lie somewhere beneath Viktor’s cool exterior. Instead, Viktor just looks tired. “You are not the Fire Nation.”

For the briefest of moments, in a fit of fleeting delirium, Yuuri considers correcting him. The moment passes.

And then, there’s a warm weight surrounding Yuuri’s hand, and he looks down to find that Viktor has taken it into his own.

“Yuuri,” he says in that gentle way that makes Yuuri’s chest feel tight, “you’re shivering. You’re not wearing shoes, you’re going to catch a cold. Please, just… come back with me.”

The cold hits Yuuri like a wave, so bone-achingly deep that Yuuri wonders how he’d managed to block it out before. His feet are red and stinging and his entire body covered in goosebumps. His teeth begin to chatter.

“Okay,” he agrees, shoulders deflating. Behind him, the ice wall sinks back into the ground.

“I can carry you—”

“No!” Yuuri clears his throat and then continues, softer. “I’m okay. I’ll be okay.”

And Yuuri turns his back on the boathouse, on the open ocean, and lets Viktor guide him by the hand, up the shallow incline home.

 

❄

 

Yuri is still asleep when they return, but Makkachin is not. She jumps onto Yuuri and Viktor the second they pull back the front curtain, whining and pawing at their waists.

“It’s okay, girl,” Viktor whispers, scratching vigorously behind her ears. “Yuuri’s okay, yes he is, yes he is…”

Yuuri tells his hand to reach out and pet her, but it lays limp at his side. When Makkachin gets off of them, Viktor drags the sleeping mat closer to the hearth and guides Yuuri toward it, supporting him as he lowers to the ground. He’s shaking from head to toe.

“Hm, there’s not much of a fire left,” Viktor muses, setting fresh logs atop the embers and grabbing the charred poker to stoke them. “I don’t suppose you’d want to…?”

Yuuri doesn’t notice the wry smile on Viktor’s lips until it suddenly disappears. Ah. A joke.

“Right. Too soon.”

Quickly enough, a few small flames flicker up between the logs, and Yuuri feels some of his warmth begin to return. There’s an unpleasant tingling in his arms and legs as he starts to feel them once again.

Viktor drags a bucket of water over to Yuuri and sits beside him in front of the fire. He gestures to Yuuri’s outstretched legs.

“May I?”

“Huh?”

“Your feet.”

Yuuri bends his ankles until he can see the angry red cuts decorating the soles of his feet. Fortunately, none of them are bleeding.

Yuuri blinks. “Oh.”

Viktor is still looking at him, waiting for a response. Only when Yuuri nods does he set to work, streaming water from the bucket and settling it glowing against the bottom of Yuuri’s feet. The cool tingling is familiar, entirely different from the pins and needles he gets as sensation washes back into his fingers and toes. Viktor moves his hands as gently, furrows his brow as deeply as always as he concentrates on healing. It takes the edge off the pain and lightens the ache in Yuuri’s whole body.

His feet, when Viktor pulls away, are as good as new. Viktor hums in satisfaction and sits back on his heels.

“Thank you,” Yuuri says, though it feels entirely deficient.

“Of course.”

There’s something behind Viktor’s eyes that he won’t let Yuuri see. He keeps his head down, busying himself with nothing—purifying and re-purifying the water, straightening the edge of Yuuri’s blanket, stoking the fire.

Yuuri sits in silence, waiting. It’s when Viktor finally sits back down next to Yuuri that he says what’s on his mind.

“You’re not a prisoner, you know.”

Yuuri swallows. “I know.” He’d believed he was in the very beginning, and had been proven wrong time and time again.

“I just mean that— well. I wouldn’t want to force you. To stay here. You can leave.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’ll help you. If you really want to leave, if you don’t want to wait, I can help you do it properly. Just give me some time to collect you some supplies, maybe a day or two, and I can cover for you—”

“Viktor—”

“—but honestly, if you could wait just a few more weeks, I could arrange your passage on the next trading vessel headed to the northern Earth Kingdom, it would be so much safer—”

“ _Viktor._ Do you want me to leave?”

“What?”

“Say the word and I’ll go. I don’t want to overstay my welcome. But you need to just tell me, I’m not… I’m not very good at guessing.”

“I want whatever you want.”

“And if I want to stay?”

The words are out of Yuuri’s mouth before he can stop them. He flinches, but maintains Viktor’s gaze.

And then Viktor lights up.

“I want you to stay, too!”

“Oh. Okay.”

“And you haven’t overstayed your welcome.”

Yuuri looks down at his hands, his thumbs fidgeting in his lap. “I can’t ask you to keep lying for me.”

“You haven’t asked for anything. I made that decision on my own.”

“But—”

“Why else do you think I would refuse to let Lilia treat you? I’m not so vain to think I could do it all on my own, but she would have figured out what you were within seconds. It was a risk I had to take.”

Yuuri glances at the curtain that obscures the narrow hallway leading to the bedrooms. “Does Yuri…?”

“No one knows. No one _will_ know.”

And Yuuri can’t stop himself from asking: _“Why?”_

“Isn’t human decency reason enough?” Viktor asks, and laughs quietly. “Though there’s also the fact that I like you a lot. It’s cold here. It’s nice to have some warmth.”

Yuuri blushes. “Oh.”

“Also, you’re incredibly beautiful.”

“ _Oh.”_

Viktor laughs, a little louder this time, the carefree sound like bells. “My Beautiful Shipwreck Boy.”

“ _Viktor…”_ Yuuri whines, burying his face in his hands.

“You were so cute! For someone who had just come so close to dying.”

Yuuri whines again. Viktor places an arm across his shoulders for comfort and Yuuri, close to dying yet again for a different reason, can’t help but lean back into him, hiding his face in the crook of Viktor’s shoulder.

“Hm. You’re still freezing. Do you mind if I…?”

“Oh.” Yuuri pulls back, swallows, tries to compose himself and force the blood from his reddened cheeks. “Okay. Yeah.”

The routine is almost second-nature to Yuuri’s body by now—laying back on his fur sleeping mat, pulling his robe apart at the chest to expose his torso, praying his blush doesn’t reach any further down than his neck. Viktor pulls the bucket closer again and repositions himself until he’s kneeling at Yuuri’s side, his legs tucked neatly beneath him. Yuuri watches Viktor with intense fascination as he yet again takes the water from the bucket to surround his hands like gloves and presses them, glowing, to Yuuri’s chest.

“Oh,” Viktor says, his eyes slightly wider than normal, and Yuuri’s heart lurches.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing, I’m sorry,” Viktor promises. “Your chi feels different than normal, is all.”

“It does?”

“Mm. It’s more cooperative,” Viktor muses, sliding his hands a finger’s length upward on Yuuri’s chest, then back down again. “It always felt like fire, even back when there was hardly any there to work with, but there was something… hesitant, about it. Like it was reluctant to burn too brightly.” Viktor frowns. “I know that sounds stupid—”

“It doesn’t.”

“Oh. Good.” Viktor hums to himself and drags his hands down toward Yuuri’s belly-button, and Yuuri forces his body not to react. “It’s working with me now, though. How delightful!”

Yuuri feels like he’s standing on a pedestal, his mind and body entirely naked. With anyone else, at any other time in his life, it would have terrified him, being seen. But it’s not so bad, he thinks, when the eyes and hands on his body are Viktor’s.

“Does it ever hurt?” Yuuri wonders.

“What?”

“My chi, the flames. Do they ever burn you?”

“Oh, no!” Viktor chuckles. “They’re not even hot. It’s more warm than anything. Almost… comforting. Like when Makkachin licks my fingers because she thinks I have a treat.”

“Ah.”

When Yuuri leans his head back and closes his eyes, focusing only on his inner fire like he does when he meditates, he realizes he can _feel_ Viktor. It’s hard to separate from the physical sensation of healing water on his chest, but it’s there—something fluid and flowing, surrounding and coaxing his flames to soothe away the bitter cold and warm him from the inside out. In the real world, water douses fire, extinguishing it with a hiss; in the real world, fire evaporates water, chasing it away as steam.

In Yuuri’s chest, the two coexist in an impossibly perfect harmony.

When Viktor pulls away, Yuuri needs a moment to adjust to the loss. His body feels empty, lonely, without Viktor’s energy intertwining with his own. But his body is also the warmest, the calmest, the most comfortable and free of pain it has ever been in Yuuri’s _life._

Something soft presses against Yuuri’s jaw, and he slowly opens his eyes to find Viktor lingering right above him, his finger trailing down the side of Yuuri’s face. Yuuri shivers, though he feels nothing but warmth.

“Is that better?” Viktor asks.

Yuuri raises his own hand off the floor, pressing it up against the back of Viktor’s. He wants the warmth to stay.

Yuuri breathes, “Yes.”

Through the press of Viktor’s hand against his cheek, in the utter silence of the moment, Yuuri thinks he can feel Viktor’s heartbeat. He wants to hold onto it, to listen to it forever, but he can feel himself slipping into the clutches of sleep.

“Good night, my beautiful firebender.”

Yuuri does not let go. The warm press of Viktor’s body, the soft furs beneath him, the pulsing of the fire at his feet coax Yuuri’s eyes to close and his mind to drift.

Only in the morning, with his mind refreshed and looking over to find Viktor asleep at his side, does he realize that, for the first time, the word _firebender_ hadn’t struck terror in Yuuri’s heart. Instead, he’d held onto it, cradled the cadence of Viktor’s voice against his chest, and relaxed from head to toe.

And in the morning, he reaches up, brushes a wisp of hair from Viktor’s forehead, and whispers in return:

“Good morning, my lovely waterbender.”

 

❄

 

Realistically, Yuuri knew from the start that this moment would come. He knew he could not hide away in Viktor and Yuri’s home forever and expect the rest of the tribe to forget he existed. He knew he would have to answer to _someone._

That someone turns out to be the tribe’s council of elders, headed by Chief Mikhail and flanked by Master Yakov and Yuri’s paternal grandfather, Nikolai, as well as two other men that Viktor does not introduce.

“Please state your name.”

Yuuri’s skin is buzzing, his hands shaking. The council sits at a high table, the chief in the center, looking down on Yuuri from above. He swallows.

“Yuuri Li.”

Viktor had tried, to little avail, to assure Yuuri that this audience was nothing to worry about. They made up their mind about him when Viktor first brought him back, starving, hypothermic, and frail—they’d gone through Yuuri’s possessions, questioned Viktor, and deemed it appropriate that he stay.

“It’s just a formality,” Viktor had promised, his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders to try to keep him from shaking. “They have no reason to suspect anything. They’ve already begun preparing the sea crab for tonight’s welcome feast!”

Yuuri had blanched. “ _Welcome feast?”_

“Of course! It’s a tradition.” Viktor frowned. “One we haven’t had an excuse for in a while, but a tradition nonetheless!”

They had spent the entire preceding day in Viktor’s room, out of earshot of his younger brother, ironing out the details of Yuuri’s cover story. Viktor had offered idea after idea as they pooled their limited knowledge of the Earth Kingdom to craft elaborate lies; still, Viktor never once asked Yuuri to tell him the truth.

Standing in front of the council that morning, Yuuri prays he will remember everything they worked on. He can feel Viktor’s eyes on him from where he stands off to the side.

“Are you a bender, Yuuri Li?”

Thankfully, this particular lie is almost automatic. “No.”

“Where were you born?”

“Senlin Village, in the Eastern Earth Kingdom.”

“You sure don’t look like any Earth Kingdom boy I ever met,” one of the councilmen says.

“We are very close to some of the oldest Fire Nation colonies,” Yuuri replies, his voice carefully even. “It is not uncommon for some families to have mixed blood.”

The chief grimaces. “Yes, I’ve heard tales of the horrible things their soldiers do.”

Yuuri has not heard these tales, but he can guess. Yakov speaks next.

“So how did you end up here?”

“My village was attacked.” Yuuri knows this much, at least, is true—he had heard the news of Senlin’s conquest around the palace shortly before he left. “We fled. I needed food, so I got a job on a merchant ship, and there was a storm and...”

“It sunk.”

“Yes.”

“And your family?”

Yuuri’s gut twists. “I do not think I will see them again.”

“I see.” Then the chief turns to Viktor, who steps closer to the center of the room. “Vitya.”

“Yes, Chief?”

“You are prepared to take responsibility for this boy? For his care and needs? For anything he might do wrong?

“Yes,” Viktor replies without hesitation, and Yuuri very nearly objects, but he bites back the spike of guilt and holds his tongue. If Yuuri missteps, if his secret gets out, the tribe’s wrath will fall not just on himself but on Viktor as well, and Yuuri _hates_ it. Viktor is knowingly harboring an enemy, and the stakes have never felt higher than they do at the council’s feet.

“And how long will you stay?”

Viktor and all five members of the council turn to Yuuri. Yuuri, of course, freezes.

“Um…”

“Do you have anywhere else to go, boy?” Nikolai grumbles.

“No.”

The chief nods. “Then you may stay as long as Vitya allows.”

Relief floods Yuuri’s veins, his shoulders slumping. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Yuuri of the Earth Kingdom. You will do well not to take advantage of our generosity.”

It’s a warning and a threat wrapped into one. Yuuri swallows.

“Understood.”

 

❄

 

What Yuuri does remember of that evening, he certainly will never forget. They arrive at sundown to find the city’s center square lined with ice-block tables that are covered in furs and laden with food, all sheltered from the evening chill by a temporary structure of ice. Yuuri has never even heard of most of the dishes: puffin-seal sausages, pickled fish, seaweed noodles, fried cucumberquats, and dozens more whose names he doesn’t catch. At the very center is a steamed sea-crab as wide as his wingspan. Someone passes around a pot of stewed sea-prunes; its odor makes Yuuri vaguely nauseous and invokes foggy memories of the days right after he was rescued, of floating in and out of consciousness with Viktor hovering above him.

“Today, we formally welcome a guest to our tribe!” the chief announces, holding his cup in the air. “By the grace of Tui and La you have found your way to us, Yuuri of the Earth Kingdom.”

Viktor elbows Yuuri in the side and Yuuri stands up abruptly, his cheeks red under the scrutiny of all the strangers that have gathered here in his name.

“T-thank you,” he stutters. “For, uh, letting me stay.”

The chief nods. “Now, let’s eat!” The crowd cheers when the chief ceremonially cracks into the giant sea-crab’s shell and the din of conversation starts back up again. Yuuri sits down, practically buzzing with nerves as he notices how many people are still staring at him from afar.

Beneath the table, Viktor slips his hand into Yuuri’s. “That was good,” he assures him, and Yuuri nods. Viktor does not pull his hand away until someone passes a platter of puffin-seal sausages; Viktor places one on both of their plates before passing it on to his brother.

“Trust me, it’s good!”

“Yeah, these are the _best,_ ” Yuri echoes. Yuuri shrugs, takes their word for it, and takes a large bite. A grin spreads across his face.

“Oh!”

“See, I told you!” Yuri grins, smug.

“They are delicious.”

Viktor keeps piling food onto Yuuri’s plate as the night wears on and Yuuri, too polite to refuse, eats almost all of it. It has been a while since he last binge-ate and his stomach warbles, still weak after a week of starvation.

Throughout the meal, the hairs on the back of his neck stick straight up; every time he glances upwards, new people are staring at him. He tries to distract himself by tuning into Yuri and Viktor’s conversation.

“...told him that maybe if he got his head out of his ass every once in awhile maybe he’d actually pass the fucking test, which pissed Yakov off but he knows as well as I do that it’s true!”

“Hmm,” Viktor muses around a bite of pickled fish.

“He thinks that just because he’s _older_ than me he deserves to get moved up more! It’s his own goddamn fault he can’t do basic forms properly at what, how old is he? Twenty two?”

“Something like that,” Viktor hums.

Yuuri blinks. “Who?”

“Ivan fucking Mikhailovich,” Yuri grunts, spitting the name out like poison. “The _dick’s_ in the same waterbending class as me, despite being like a decade older, and he’s bitter that I tested up so high even though I work my _ass off_ and all he does during class is pick his disgusting toenails—”

“Yura, volume.”

“Ugh,” Yuri scoffs, but lowers his voice. “Look at his smug face, he looks like a piece of fucking driftwood.”

Viktor grins, his mouth the perfect shape of a heart. “I always thought it was more like blubbered seal-jerky.”

Yuuri chokes on a sip of water. It burns in his nose.

“Viktor!”

“Well, he does.”

“Where is he?”

Viktor inclines his head toward the table of elders. “Next to his father. The chief.”

“Ah.”

Yuuri has not seen blubbered seal-jerky before, but he can only imagine Viktor is right—there’s something incredibly off-putting about the broad-shouldered, blond-haired man sitting at the chief’s table. He doesn’t have long to process this, however.

“He’s looking at me,” Yuuri whispers, jerking his head away. Viktor glances over, something flashing behind his eyes before quickly disappearing.

“He’s just curious, I’m sure. Nothing to worry about!”

“Right.”

“Let’s not talk about him. There are better things to think about—like your surprise, Yuuri!”

“...Surprise?”

“Sure! It’s a tradition, too, but Yakov was trying to get out of it but I thought you might like it so I convinced him we had to do it anyway.”

“Made us all do extra work,” Yuri grumbled, into his plate full of crab.

“Oh. Well. I…”

“Here! Have another drink.” Viktor fills both of their cups with the definitely-alcoholic mystery beverage that has been making its way around the table—a Water Tribe specialty, that’s all Viktor says about it. The liquid burns on the way down, far stronger than the wine Yuuri was used to at home, but fills his chest with warmth and he goes to pour himself another cup.

At just that moment, the chief stands and clears his throat.

“Now that we’ve all eaten, it’s time for some entertainment. Master Yakov?”

Yakov stands from the table of elders and nods. A swarm of bodies clears the tables and serving platters from the center of the square, leaving a large empty space. At each of the four corners sits a decorative pot the size of a barrel. A low rumble of whispers ripples over the audience.

To Yuuri’s right, both Yuri and Viktor get to their feet. Yuuri reaches out for Viktor’s wrist almost instinctively.

“What…?”

But Viktor is smiling. “Your surprise, remember? Watch closely, Yuuri.”

The waterbending master stands in the center of the makeshift stage, flanked at each corner by one of his students—Yuri, Viktor, a girl with red hair, and a dark-haired young man with blue eye makeup: Mila and Georgi, Yuuri’s mind supplies, remembering the stories Yuri and Viktor have told him over their shared meals. They stand with their backs straight and their heads down. A hush falls over the audience.

Across the square someone strikes a drum once, twice, then begins to fill the air with a deep, hypnotic pulse. Yakov’s students slide into steady stances and bring their arms from their sides up above their heads, each movement synchronized and deliberate. From each of the four pots lifts a stream of water that curls up into a sphere above them, hovering for a long moment.

Then the beat picks up, three other drums joining in with a rhythm like a racing heartbeat, and the suspense of the moment breaks. Yakov pulls in water from each of his students and suddenly they’re off, sliding through movements that are too martial to be dance but too expressive to be a prescribed form. It is a spectacle of cycling energy, the flowing momentum of each bender’s movement redirected and renewed by another in a constant dialogue. The water weaves and circles around the benders as if controlled by only one mind, soaring high and swooping low and filling Yuuri with wonder.

Nothing like this is possible with his own element. Fire’s flow of energy is a short, one-sided burst. It is not interested in conversation. It cannot adapt, renew, or form a connection with another. Yuuri’s hands, Yuuri’s body, and Yuuri’s burning chi are made only for shooting flames, never for reaching out to someone and feeling them reach back.

Something strangely akin to jealousy threatens to make a home in Yuuri’s chest, but is quickly chased out by mind-numbing, jaw-dropping awe—because Viktor wielding his element is the most beautiful thing Yuuri has ever seen.

Viktor is always stunning. Always. In sunlight or moonlight or firelight, in the morning or evening, with or without the dark makeup he sometimes applies to his eyelashes, the sight of him makes Yuuri’s heart skip a beat. And Yuuri, of course, has seen Viktor bend before—he stirs pots of stew with a flick of his wrist, makes little icy flowers out of midair, and heals Yuuri with glowing water wrapped around his hands. But Yuuri has never seen Viktor so unreserved with his power, so completely immersed in his element, his every movement softly elegant but sharply controlled. An entire barrelful of water streams high above his head, twisting and turning like an extension of his body. Yuuri has to remind himself to breathe.

The drums beat faster, the water coming together to form a giant ring that circles above their heads. The ring splits into two, then four, then eight, interlocking with one another and spinning faster and faster in time with the beat. Each of the benders is pushing and pulling in sync with one another, intense concentration written on their faces. Viktor’s hair whips out behind him, fluttering in the wind created by their virtual cyclone of water. Yuuri holds his breath, eyes fixed on the water spinning through the air like a dancer, and suddenly the drums get louder and impossibly _faster_ before—

The final beat rings out, and every individual drop of water explodes into a snowflake.

On the stage, the benders stand with their chests heaving and their fists held high above their heads. The audience erupts into raucous applause but Yuuri can only sit there, stunned, as through the falling snow he sees Viktor break from his final position; he turns, looks Yuuri directly in the eye, and _winks._

Viktor looks beautiful covered in snowflakes, too.

And then, because the universe has no mercy, all of the benders retreat from the stage except for Viktor, who moves to the center, drops his arms to his sides, and lowers his chin to his chest. Waiting, again.

“What is he…?” Yuuri mutters. Yuri, who has just sat back down, scoffs.

“He insisted on doing a solo. Made some dumb excuse, too, but we all know _why._ ”

Yuuri doesn’t have the attentional capacity to decode what that means—he can only keep his eyes fixed on Viktor and remind himself to breathe.

_Watch closely, Yuuri._

He doesn’t look away for a second—how could he? Even before he makes his first move, he has complete command of the audience, every pair of eyes has locked on his elegant form.

So when the music begins, and Viktor begins to move, Yuuri’s poor thumping heart doesn’t stand a chance. Somewhere, the beginnings of a melody float into being on the vibrating strings of an erhu, and Viktor unfurls upward, his head stretched to the sky. He raises one arm, reaching upward, and the snow on the ground rises with him. Each flake hovers in the air as the erhu hangs onto a warbling note.

Then Viktor brings his arm down, caressing the side of his head as he goes, and he extends the movement out in one fell swoop—the snow melts to water, forming a bubble around him, before he gathers each drop together into a flowing stream that threads around his body with every graceful extension of his limbs.

His eyes are half-lidded, his silver hair trailing out behind him. Every movement has a purpose and bleeds into the next, a spin becoming a leap becoming an elegant sweep of his arms through the air, the water flowing along in an arc above his head. Viktor paints a masterpiece with his body and his element, pens sheer poetry, interweaves harmony with the plaintive melody of the strings. Every ripple of muscle and sweep of his body speaks of longing and seizes Yuuri somewhere beneath his ribcage where it finds something similar—a twin yearning, residing dormant in his chest, that awakens and pulses in time with Viktor’s every movement.

Yuuri shudders, digging his nails into his knees to keep himself from standing and reaching back.

The melody climbs higher, higher, trembling with longing as Viktor reaches up once again to the sky, spinning on one foot faster and faster, his water threading further and further above his head—and just when the song’s cry approaches its peak, the droplets explode back into snow.

Viktor stops spinning and his extended arms fall back, folding above his head like a shield. His chest heaves, snowflakes fall into his hair, and he holds himself still. The audience cheers and applauds, a standing ovation that even his younger brother joins in. Yuuri lurches to his feet and takes a shuddering breath, forcing his lungs to take in the air necessary to express along with the rest of the onlookers just how _stunning_ that was.

Viktor takes a moment, gathering himself with his eyes closed, before he breaks from his final pose and bows. There’s a lovely smile stretched across his face, but it’s still a performance—and it remains a performance, until the second he sweeps off the stage, makes his way back to Yuuri, and lets Yuuri pull him into his arms.

“Viktor, _Viktor,_ that was, you— _Viktor…”_

Something about Viktor relaxes, then, his shoulders slumping and his smile widening, his expression effortlessly genuine.

“Did you like it?”

_“Viktor.”_

“So, yes?”

“It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”

“Oh!”

Yuuri isn’t sure if it’s the three cups of mystery-drink, or what he just witnessed, or Viktor in his arms, but he feels as light as air and warm as fire and altogether quite dizzy. Music strikes back up, something more traditional and upbeat, and Viktor pulls back to take Yuuri’s hands.

“Dance with me?”

Sure enough, what used to be a stage is now a dance floor, filling quickly with couples and children all moving similarly in time with the music.

Yuuri hesitates. “I don’t know this dance.”

“I’ll teach you! You said you are a dancer, I’m sure you can keep up.” And then Viktor winks, _again,_ and Yuuri cannot even consider saying no.

He and Viktor both down one more drink before they drag one another out onto the dance floor, and that’s about the point at which Yuuri’s memories start to go fuzzy. At some point, he stops forming memories altogether. But he remembers Viktor’s laugh as he attempts to teach Yuuri some of their traditional dances and the surprise on his face when Yuuri picks them up almost immediately. His body remembers Viktor’s touch, the addicting warmth that spreads across his skin from every point of contact, their hands, their chests, their hips pressed close. He remembers moving, gliding, swinging, sweeping across the floor, never once stopping to think. Dancing with Viktor is instinctual, and even more intoxicating than any drink.

At some point, he blacks out. When he awakens the next morning, he finds himself in his own sleeping bag but on the floor of Viktor’s room. Viktor isn’t there—the strength of the sun’s energy tells Yuuri it’s about midday. There’s an unpleasant pounding in his head, and he prays to Agni that he did not make a fool of himself in front of this entire city of waterbenders. He was trying to keep a low profile, even at a banquet thrown in his honor, so of course he had to go and do this. Drunk Yuuri knows no bounds.

He staggers into the living room, still trying to find his balance, and sees Viktor lounging by the fire reading a small, leather-bound book.

“Ah, you’re up!”

“Ugh,” is all Yuuri says.

“I put you to bed in my room, I hope that’s okay. I was a bit worried and wanted make sure you were close. I made you something, it’s supposed to help with the hangover. I can try to heal it properly soon, if you want.” Viktor gestures to a small cup sitting next to a plate of food near the hearth. “And there’s some breakfast too, though it’s gone cold. I can put it back over the fire for a moment or—well, Yuri is out with Mila, if you wanted to—”

“I don’t mind it cold.”

“Ah. Alright, then.”

The breakfast isn’t half bad. The hangover cure is repulsive.

“So, when do you want to start?”

Yuuri blinks. “Huh?”

“Your lessons!”

“My… what?”

“If you’re going to be as good as me, Yuuri, you’ll need to start soon.”

Horror seizes Yuuri’s chest. What had drunk Yuuri _done?_ “I don’t… Um…”

Viktor’s smile flickers. He closes his book and sets it to the side. “Ah. Perhaps you were a bit more intoxicated than I thought. But you were dancing so _well_ at that point still and I thought, there is no way he—”

“What did I do?” Yuuri’s jaw and soldiers are squared. He is only grateful no one is here to compare him to his father again—the last time anything like this happened, Minako and his mother had been insufferable.

“Well, you whisked me off my feet, of course—”

“Yes.”

“—and told me I was the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen—”

“Oh, no.”

“— _again,_ which was quite flattering—”

“Viktor—”

“—and then you said you wanted me to teach you how to dance like me—”

“Oh.”

“—and that one day you wanted to be _better_ than me, which I’m sure with enough practice—”

“Oh, _no.”_

Viktor’s smile is heart-shaped and bright. “Oh, yes!”

“Viktor, I didn’t…”

The smile disappears. Yuuri feels instantly guilty.

“If you don’t want to, of course, I completely understand, like I said I didn’t realize—”

“Yes,” he interrupts.

Viktor pauses. “...Yuuri?”

Yuuri lurches forward, knees banging against the ground in front of where Viktor sits with his back straight and on his guard. He kneels with his legs tucked beneath him, places his hands just above his knees, bows his head and shoulders and says, “Please, teach me.”

“Oh!”

Yuuri looks up; Viktor looks delighted.

“We can start tonight, then!”

“A-alright.”

“On one condition.”

Yuuri freezes. Viktor just keeps smiling.

“I want to learn firebending!”

And that— that just doesn’t compute.

“Uh.” Yuuri glances nervously back at the hallway that leads to the bedrooms, even though he knows Viktor said Yuri wasn’t home. “You’re not a firebender?”

“Just the technique, of course. Waterbending is beautiful but I’ve been a master since I was seventeen and there’s no _challenge_ anymore and— and well, I’m bored, I suppose.”

“Fire is— fire is totally different, how would that even work?”

“I don’t know!” The delighted smile hasn’t budged. “But I want to find out, don’t you? I could teach you some basic waterbending techniques, too, we could learn so much from each other, and—"

“I can’t.”

Viktor’s smile finally falters. Another moment passes, and when Yuuri doesn’t elaborate any further, his expression becomes carefully neutral.

“I see.”

“I mean, I— it would be interesting, probably, and maybe I’d want to, but I can’t.”

“You can’t teach me?”

“No, yes, I mean, I can’t. Firebend.”

Viktor blinks. “You’re a firebender.”

“I know.”

“You’re a firebender that can’t firebend?” He frowns. “I’ve seen you, just the other night.”

Yuuri’s stomach twists itself into knots. He hadn’t anticipated having to tell Viktor this—he doesn’t have a cover story in place, no way to explain it without…

“I can create fire,” Yuuri admits. He wrings his hands in his lap. “Little flames, mostly, sometimes bigger, but I can’t do anything with them. Basic self-defense, maybe, but that’s it.”

“Yuuri…”

Yuuri takes a deep, evening breath. “Look, I know you wanted—”

He is interrupted by Viktor’s hand reaching out suddenly to grasp his. “No, don’t, it’s… I’m so sorry, Yuuri, that is awful.”

Yuuri looks up. Viktor is so close to him, his eyes little pools of pure blue that hold a deep sorrow Yuuri does not quite understand.

“It’s okay,” Yuuri replies, and means it. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Yes it is. It’s who you are, and someone made you _hide_ it.” His grip is firm, his gaze resolute, but almost immediately flickers with doubt. “Like I’m making you hide now.”

“No! No, you’re not, you saved me, Viktor, and I’m used to hiding and it’s my choice to stay here and—” Yuuri takes a deep breath. “Anyway, I don’t have to hide anything when I’m with you."

Viktor’s face flushes red. “Ah.” He looks unbelievably pleased, but Yuuri is unbelievably embarrassed and turns away toward his empty plate still sitting on the hearth.

“Oh, well anyway, the breakfast was good, thank you again for making me s—”

“We can still learn.”

Viktor’s fingers are wrapped around his wrist. Yuuri blinks. “Huh?”

“Firebending is a part of you. Suppressing it like that—it can’t be good for you. And as your healer, it’s my job to make you healthy! You can make a flame, which means you know the basics. That’s all you really need. And I’m a master waterbender—I’m sure _some_ of my skills transfer, right? I can teach you to dance, and you can teach me the theory behind firebending, and we can work it out together!”

“Viktor…”

But Viktor looks so certain, so excited and optimistic, that Yuuri can’t even find it in himself to doubt—later, perhaps, when they hit the first of many stumbling blocks, but Viktor’s ambition is contagious. Yuuri isn’t sure what to do with it, except hold tightly to Viktor’s hands and let himself believe just as much as Viktor does.

“You’re going to learn firebending, Yuuri!”

Yuuri’s heart thrums against his ribcage, his inner-fire glows, and he says, “Okay.”

 

❄

 

The first thing Viktor does that afternoon is cure Yuuri’s hangover. It is a much more involved process than Yuuri had anticipated, and he almost tells Viktor to stop halfway through—Viktor shouldn’t waste his energy on this, it will go away on its own soon enough, it’s Yuuri’s own dumb fault for getting so utterly trashed… But Viktor, of course, will hear none of this.

“No, I should have warned you. I was practically bottle-fed that stuff as a baby! I didn’t realize how strong it would be to someone whose body isn’t used to it.”

“You… what?” Yuuri is a little shocked, but also distracted by Viktor’s healing hands sliding over the very base of his stomach. Any lower, and Yuuri’s not sure he can—

“Either way, I can’t drink more than four cups of it in one night without throwing up.” Viktor’s hands, mercifully, start sliding back up his chest, then down his right arm. “You must have quite the high tolerance!”

“I, uh, get it from my dad.” Yuuri is not quite sure why he says this. He’s not sure why he says most things, when he’s around Viktor.

A half hour of healing later, Viktor pulls his hands away and Yuuri feels as good as new once more. He feels like apologizing again—it seems like all Viktor ever does is heal him—but he has learned that Viktor doesn’t like that.

“Thank you, Viktor,” Yuuri says instead. Viktor’s responding smile is soft and sweet.

“I’m glad you feel better!”

The second thing Viktor does is waterbend Yuuri a bedroom. Or rather, he brings a thick ice wall out from the ground and divides his own bedroom into two, then cuts a new entrance off of the hallway and strings up a pelt curtain. When he’s finished, Viktor stands back with his hands on his hips and his shoulders squared proudly.

“There. If you’re going to be staying here longer term, we can’t have you sleeping in the living room! Your body temperature is normal enough now that you don’t need to sleep close to the fireplace, so this should do. Besides, I’m sure you’d like some privacy.”

“Thank you,” Yuuri says yet again, his eyes wide and blinking. “Are you sure, though, your room—”

“Was way too big as it was. Believe me, I’d much prefer this.”

“About damn time,” Yuri grumbles from behind them. He has his hands shoved in his pockets. “I was getting tired of tripping over you every morning. I was gonna give you my room, honestly, if this asshole didn’t step up soon.”

Viktor’s half-brother sometimes reminds Yuuri so much of Mari that it makes his chest ache.

That night, once the city has fallen silent and Yuri is asleep, Viktor and Yuuri sneak out. The sun has long since set over the horizon but the half-moon casts a silver glow over the snow-white streets and ice-block homes. They stay toward the side of the city, walking along the base of the encircling cliffs. They trace the downhill path that Yuuri had fled along a few nights ago, heading south toward the ocean. Neither says a word but Viktor’s body thrums with what appears to be excitement, and Yuuri’s with nerves. He keeps compulsively glancing over his shoulder, his head echoing with the chief’s question: _You are prepared to take responsibility for this boy? For anything he might do wrong?_

Viktor, though, seems to know what he’s doing. He leads the way down past the boathouse Yuuri had spotted other night and swings them left when they hit the ocean—to Yuuri’s surprise, there against the ocean-facing side of the cliff, is a set of stairs carved, or rather waterbended, out of the ice, towering at least six stories high.

“Oh,” Yuuri breathes.

“I hope you aren’t afraid of heights.”

Yuuri has no reason to ever know if he is afraid of heights or not. “I’m okay,” he says instead, not feeling the least bit okay.

“It’s worth the climb, I promise. You’ll see.”

Yuuri’s legs, still so weak from disuse and aching from how hard he pushed himself a few nights ago, nearly give out halfway up. His lungs burn from the high altitude exertion, his brain clouded with fog. He clings to Viktor’s hand and doesn’t dare look back.

When they reach the top, they both collapse onto flat ground and land face-first in the snow. Viktor, at least, has struggled too, so Yuuri can’t be _too_ out of shape. It saves him a bit of embarrassment.

Viktor had, thankfully, dressed them both in the thickest of coats and gloves before making this trek. Yuuri had wondered, briefly, what the purpose of bundling up was if he was going to overheat from exertion on the way up—but when he raises his head and takes in the landscape around him, he understands.

The night is clear, with no clouds and no falling snow. Behind them is the ocean, dotted with icebergs, and from this high up Yuuri can almost see the curvature of the horizon. But the ocean does not amaze him—he grew up on an island chain, after all. Instead, it is the vast expanse of tundra that takes his breath away, extending as far as the eye can see.

Yuuri doesn’t know what he expected. He isn’t even sure why the sight of empty planes of ice and snow strike him with such humbled awe. He stares.

“ _Wow.”_

“It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it? I’ve always found it calming, coming up here.”

They walk a few paces away from the cliff’s edge as they regain their breath. Viktor sets down the pack he had slung over his shoulder—inside is a bag of blubbered-seal jerky, two canteens of drinking water, and a waterproof fur blanket to sit on if they get tired.

They start with Viktor’s element.

“Waterbending is all about the flow of energy,” he explains, drawing a patch of snow from the ground and turning it to a ball of water suspended above his hands. “Yakov always tells us to think about it as push and pull, like the moon and ocean creating the tides. Energy is never lost, it only changes direction as it follows the flow of the water.” He streams the water from one hand to another, looping back and forth and around, guiding it in a slow figure-eight motion. “As the bender, I direct it, but it also directs me. I flow with the current and guide it along the way.”

Viktor looks just as lovely demonstrating simple technique as he did last night, dancing across the stage in expert command of his element and his own body. Yuuri forces himself to swallow.

“Fire is different,” Yuuri says, his voice low. Viktor brings the water back to his hands and stands still, listening. “You can’t flow along with it because it doesn’t have direction—you are the one that has to tell it where to go, otherwise it spreads anywhere and everywhere. My mom always told me that firebending is about the energy within yourself, your inner-fire, extending beyond you and manifesting as flames. The fire—it _is_ you, it’s something you created from your own spirit and your own chi. It couldn’t exist without you.” Yuuri looks down at his gloved hands. “But you have to be careful that it doesn’t get out of your control. If it grows too big, if it catches on something…” Yuuri shrugs. “It only destroys.”

“Can you show me?”

Yuuri’s toes curl in his boots and his eyes flit away from Viktor. He tugs at the fingers of his gloves, but does not take them off.

“If you don’t want to…” Viktor says, but there’s something about the doubt in his voice that makes resolution fall across Yuuri’s mind. He shakes his head and clears his mind.

“No. I can do it.”

He pulls the gloves off, places them into Viktor’s bag, and closes his eyes. There is no point in pretending he is somewhere safe, hidden away in his closet at the palace or in his mother’s chambers—there are far too many differences. The sun’s energy is so far away he can barely detect it, a waterbender’s eyes are on him, and he is sweaty beneath the coat but freezing everywhere his skin is open to the cold, dry air. Still, he gathers his energy, focusing on the fire that burns in his chest and taking deep breaths, allowing the thin oxygen to stoke its flames. He takes that energy, channels it through his body, and lets it combust as orange fire in his palms. He continues to breathe deeply, not daring to open his eyes yet, allowing the warm rush of connection with his element to soothe his frayed mind. The nerves that had been buzzing since Viktor appeared in his doorway with a pack slung over his shoulder, since the audience with the council and the following banquet, since he sprinted from Viktor’s home sure he was going to have to flee yet again only to die on the open ocean—it all melts away. His mind is clearer than it has been in days. The flames lick warmth at his frozen, jagged edges.

When he finally opens his eyes, he focuses for a moment on the small fire in his hands, before slowly raising his head to look at Viktor. A dull bit of fear stabs at his stomach; he has never wielded his element in front of anyone besides his mother, convinced he would rather die than let anyone see, and Viktor’s parents were killed by firebenders, and Viktor—

But Viktor. With the orange glow of fire reflecting in his wide, ice-blue eyes, he looks utterly mesmerized. His mouth has fallen open in the shape of a little _‘o’._

“Amazing,” he breathes, looking between Yuuri’s hands and Yuuri’s face. “It’s amazing.”

“Viktor—”

“You’re _amazing,_ Yuuri.”

Yuuri’s chest goes tight again, but not from nerves. He sucks in a deep breath, and the fire in his hands swells. “Oh.”

“Wow! It just got bigger!”

“It is connected to me,” Yuuri explains. “The energy for the fire comes from our chi, which comes from the energy of the sun—but the power behind firebending comes from the breath. Just like how you fan a flame if you want it grow stronger.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“Watch. I’ll take a deep breath in…” The orange peak of the flames reach higher, the base near Yuuri’s palms burns whiter, “...and out.” The fire shrinks back.

Viktor doesn’t look any less enthralled. He lurches forward, bending over as to get a better look at the bit of flames, and Yuuri jerks back.

“Be careful!” he hisses, and Viktor straightens. “I don’t want it to burn you.”

“Sorry,” Viktor says. “It’s just very beautiful.”

“It’s dangerous.”

“It’s barely the size of a lantern flame!”

“It can still burn you. And if I’m not careful…” Yuuri musters up the courage, feeding more of his own energy into the fire. His hands move farther apart as the flame grows wider, taller, more powerful. “I could lose control.”

“You won’t.”

Yuuri shrinks the flame again. “I could.”

“Well, if you light anything on fire I’ll just put it out,” Viktor insists.

Yuuri can’t help but smile. “That _is_ convenient, isn’t it?”

“Mm. Water, though, it’s nothing like this. Yuuri, you can _create_ something, with nothing but your hands and your own chi. You can connect with it, give it life…” One of Viktor’s hands holds the orb of water while the other reaches out hesitantly toward Yuuri’s flame, then pulls back. “I wish I could hold it. It’s sad to know that I never can.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “It’s more frightening than anything. Firebending, I mean.”

“Perhaps that’s because no one’s ever really taught you how.” In the moonlight, Viktor’s eyes shine with a watery sympathy. There’s a question behind his voice, but it’s a question for another time.

Yuuri swallows back a reply. He doesn’t trust his voice.

Viktor has turned his attention back to the water in his hands, stretching it into a long stream once again. Yuuri watches with bated breath as Viktor bends the water between them, reaching it out like a finger toward the fire in Yuuri’s palms. The flames cast an orange-yellow glow over the water as it reaches out, and Yuuri finds himself reaching back almost without thinking, a tiny tongue of fire pushing outward to meet Viktor in the middle.

Fire and water meet with a violent sizzle and evaporate as steam.

Viktor almost laughs. “I don’t know what I thought would happen.”

“Me neither.”

“They’re not so different, you know,” Viktor muses. “They’re both extensions of our bodies. They’re both energy. I wonder if you…”

Yuuri lets his fire go out. “What?”

“Hm.” Viktor’s pointer finger comes up to rest on his lips. “The most basic waterbending attack is the water whip. It’s the first thing we learn when we’re young. I wonder if there is a firebending equivalent?”

Viktor demonstrates, widening his feet and settling into a deep stance, and bringing the ball of water back up toward his chest. He shifts his weight back, pulling the water with him, before surging forward and shooting one arm out forward with his palm facing the sky. The water follows his momentum, stretching into a long stream and flicking out into the air in front of him. It is the first waterbending move Viktor has demonstrated that looks like it would be useful in combat and, from all the firebending he’s seen, it feels quite familiar.

“I don’t know what we call it, but I’ve seen something really similar. It just looks like… like punching fire out from your fist? Since we have to create the element ourselves, the first few steps are internal, and then once you extend your arm all the way the fire shoots out wherever you aim.”

Viktor nods. “Can you show me?”

“Ah, well,” Yuuri’s gaze drops to the icy ground. “I’ve never actually done it.”

“Try, then.”

Yuuri widens his stance, centers himself, winds back and then _punches—_ a small bit of fire comes out. He feels heat rise to his cheeks.

“See, I told you—”

“You just need more practice. You said power comes from the breath, right? Breathe deeply and don’t rush it.”

The second time goes a little better; the fire almost feels hot this time and lingers in the air before disappearing. Still, the flames are small and entirely unimpressive.

After a few more tries, Viktor seems to realize that an attack that relies on power is not a great starting point for someone who has barely conjured more than a simple flame and a basic self-defense shield.

“Let’s try working on your control instead.”

Viktor, despite having absolutely no idea what he is doing, is not a bad teacher—he understands bending with a depth Yuuri can never even dream of achieving. His exercises, though they have to be adapted for Yuuri’s element, are actually helpful. They spend a very long time shifting their weight back and forth and streaming their elements from one hand to another. By the time they take a break Yuuri is exhausted from maintaining such intense focus, but he feels more confident in his ability to control the flames he has produced.

They sit down on the fur blanket, drink some water, and gnaw on the seal jerky, and after a few minutes of rest Viktor says, “Now let’s dance!”

Yuuri blanches the color of the snow beneath them. “What? Now?”

“Of course!”

“I don’t— I haven’t danced in so long, I don’t have much of a routine…”

“That’s alright!” Viktor waves his hand. “I just want to get a sense of your style and background, so I know where to begin.”

“O-okay…”

Yuuri’s mind feels like slush from the concentration and his body shaky from physical exertion, but he downs the last of the water and stands. He shrugs off the thick coat and takes a few steps back away from Viktor; the cold air feels surprisingly nice on his overheated skin.

Viktor bends the snowy ground into hard ice, scored along the surface to keep Yuuri from slipping. That pensive finger has come up to his lips again and his eyes are fixed on Yuuri. He nods.

Yuuri’s eyelids hang heavy over his eyes as he allows himself to feel his entire body, from the angle of his neck to arches of his feet. There is music drifting through his head, lacking in a distinguishable melody but calling Yuuri to dance all the same. Yuuri will not remember much of the following minutes, only that he began with two deep breaths, stretched one leg high in the air, and let himself be taken over by everything he has felt in the past month but has not allowed himself to express. There are pieces of old routines strung together almost randomly, by muscle memory and some unthinking instinct that allowed one movement to flow into the next. He holds his head high, his shoulders back, his back straight, and imbues every extension of his arms and legs with a grace he does not embody otherwise. He does not know if the dance is beautiful to watch, only that it feels beautiful in his body as he whips across the floor of ice.

When he finishes, his limbs still ache and his chest heaves but his mind feels sharp, clear, completely refreshed. He holds his arms out to the side, his shoulders and head curled downward to the ground. Minako would have a hundred critiques, but she would be proud.

Yuuri waits, but Viktor says nothing for a long moment. Eventually, he summons the courage to look up.

Viktor’s eyes are wide and sparkling, like when Yuuri first showed him fire except… different. He looks speechless.

“Viktor?”

And Viktor replies, voice low and breathless:

“ _Yuuri.”_

 

❄

 

The next few weeks are a dream.

Neither Yuuri nor Viktor know a thing about proper firebending technique beyond the absolute basics, and yet Yuuri finds himself learning. Their methods are far from Fire Sage-approved and involve more guesswork and waterbending technique than anything else, but Yuuri could hardly be considered a purist.

Every night, Viktor demonstrates a waterbending form and they work together to adapt the flowing, sweeping moves into something more suitable for the sharp directionality of firebending. Once the sequence of steps has been mapped out and Yuuri’s body becomes familiar with the movements, Viktor encourages him to add in the fire, a plume from his fist on this punch, from his toes on this kick, a ring of flames traced in the air when he settles back into a grounded center stance. The flames start small, timid and unfamiliar, but with each practice shoot farther and burn brighter than the night before. Each time he tries something bolder, more powerful, fear unfurls in his stomach, but he always looks to Viktor and finds approval reflected alongside orange flames in his eyes.

Once the fear is soothed away, however, it leaves behind something else entirely—an odd sense of strength, his inner fire roaring in his veins, and a chest-swelling pride that he cannot choke down no matter how hard he tries. At first, this only brings back more fear: there is a reason his mother made him promise never to do this. Fire is power, and power is addicting, and in the wrong hands it—

Viktor only smiles, though, as Yuuri’s flames grow stronger and his movements more assured. As if fire like his has never hurt anyone in the world.

(Yuuri even attempts to demonstrate the simplest firebending form there is, one he’s only seen from afar but finds easy to recreate as it consists of a repetition of only two basic moves. Viktor tries to adapt the form for waterbending and, unused to the strong stances and quick movements, trips over his own momentum and falls face-first into the snow. Yuuri cannot help but laugh, and Viktor bends a snowball into his face as revenge.)

Viktor has an encyclopedia’s worth of waterbending moves in his mind, and his brow scrunches up in a very particular way as he flits through it each night, looking for something suited to be adapted for Yuuri. They try a fire wall, first, and the mechanics are different than water and it is _hard_ , creating that much fire at once, but it gets easier the more Yuuri attempts to do it.

There is also a move Viktor calls the octopus—that Yuuri suspects is intended for a far higher level of mastery than Viktor will let on—where tentacles of water reach up from the ground in a circle all around him, each one controlled individually. A good defensive _and_ offensive technique, Viktor explains.

A fire octopus, though, takes just as much power as the fire wall, yet infinitely more control and precision. To control eight separate streams of fire with only two hands requires immense concentration and attention to detail, and it takes Yuuri many nights to make them move even close to the way he wants them to.

(One night, Viktor tells Yuuri is stance is off. He can’t control the octopus if he isn’t centered properly and here, _let me show you!_ Yuuri forces his body not to react as Viktor presses up against his back; he focuses on the cold air on his face and hands, trying desperately to get a hold of himself. If Viktor notices his flushed cheeks, Yuuri hopes he attributes it to the physical exertion and nighttime cold at the top of the cliffs.)

Every night, they start with bending and move on to dance. The second is more an emotional outlet than anything; the stakes are low, and they don’t have to think about what is proper. It’s just…

Well, it’s fun. That’s the only word Yuuri can think to describe how it feels to move alongside Viktor. The water tribe’s elegant, flowing style transfers to dance as well as bending; it is noticeably different from Yuuri’s, but he has little trouble adapting. Viktor doesn’t have trouble, either, and it is shocking to see Viktor perform a sequence with the same crisp, sharpened quality Yuuri is used to in his own movements.

“What do you think?”

Yuuri blushes—again—and blurts out a correction to Viktor’s spin technique before he can stop himself.

Only later will Yuuri look back and realize that it was in this moment that the beginnings of _their routine_ were born—a stunning pas de deux, choreographed over a period of weeks a few hours every night, both sharp and soft, elegant and powerful, flowing like water and pulsing like fire. They start by dancing the same movements in parallel but the distance between them shrinks each night, and after only a few weeks they are moving as one, locked in a delicate push and pull of their bodies: Viktor’s hand on Yuuri’s hip here, Yuuri’s arm reaching across Viktor’s leg there, their backs pressed up against one another in the starting pose and chests touching at the very end. Sometimes they even breathe together. Inhale, exhale, in time with one another and the music only the two of them can hear.

(“I wish we could dance to music,” Yuuri mentions at one point as they take a water break.

“We hardly need it,” Viktor had dismissed. “I can always hear the music, so long as you’re dancing.”)

This schedule, predictably, leaves them both quite sleep-deprived. They have to wait until Yuri has fallen asleep before they can sneak out, and by the time they return they have limited hours to sleep before morning. Still, those hours are always the best rest Yuuri has gotten in his life, despite having traded in a plush, regal mattress for a sleeping bag on an ice-block floor. They return from the cliffs jelly-legged and exhausted in the best of ways, the anxious voices Yuuri usually has to fight for sleep noticeably silent after hours bending and dancing with Viktor.

Sometimes, though, he will lay in his room and stare at the makeshift wall that separates him from Viktor. He will imagine, as his bending grows stronger, what would happen if he just reached out and melted the ice between them, crawled through the hole beneath his hands, and… And then, he doesn’t know. It is silly, considering how much time they spend together, but he just wants to be close to Viktor.

The drawstring bag shoved away in the corner taunts him, on nights that he cannot fall asleep. It holds all of his worldly possessions but he refuses to so much as touch it. As if he needs a reminder. As if he can’t still picture every stroke of his mother’s handwriting each time he closes his eyes.

_Never forget how much we—_

Some nights they stay out far too late, especially as spring wears on and the nights become less bitterly cold. Viktor always brings a blanket, and they often sit down to rest after dancing before making the trek down the treacherous staircase back into the city. When they get to talking, they tend to forget all about returning.

Once, they remain on the cliffs nearly until sunrise. They lie on their backs looking at the sky, shoulders and arms and legs pressed up against one another at their sides.

“You’re warm,” Viktor muses, tracing a finger over Yuuri’s open palm. It tickles, just a bit, but Yuuri does not mind.

“I’ve been exercising.”

“So have I,” Viktor replies, abandoning Yuuri’s hand to press the backs of his fingers to the exposed side of Yuuri’s neck. Yuuri yelps.

“That’s cold!”

“Mm, exactly. It seems you run hot when you’re trying to stay warm. A firebender thing?”

“I… don’t know.”

“Well, it’s nice,” Viktor declares, wiggling his body ever-so-slightly closer to Yuuri’s. “You can keep me warm, too.”

Yuuri tries very, _very_ hard not to let his imagination run away with that one.

After a few moments of silence, Viktor changes the subject. “Yakov told me today that my waterbending looks different than normal.”

Yuuri whips his head toward Viktor, eyes wide. “Oh, no, Viktor—“

“Before you go and get worried,” Viktor holds a hand up, “he doesn’t suspect anything, he couldn’t. I told him I’m just bored, and wanted to try something new. It’s the truth, anyway.”

Yuuri relaxes into the fur blanket and blinks up at the sky. It is a cloudless night. There are so many stars.

“You aren’t concerned about… about your waterbending?”

“What about it?”

“Never mind.”

“Yuuri…”

Yuuri traces constellations with his eyes. He says nothing.

“I don’t think our lessons have _corrupted_ my bending, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

The breath leaves Yuuri’s lungs with a _whoosh,_ billowing out like smoke in front of his face. He rubs the material of his robe between his thumb and forefinger, unsure how to respond, when a warm weight settles over his hand and stills his movement.

“Yuuri,” Viktor begins, his fingers winding around Yuuri’s, his touch like warm water. He says Yuuri’s name so beautifully, and Yuuri takes every chance to savor it. “Why do you think so negatively of your own element?”

The question has been behind Viktor’s eyes for some weeks now, ever since he revealed that he had never learned to bend. Still, Yuuri never come up with an adequately detailed lie. He settles for the truth, then—or a vague version of it.

“I know what fire can do. How many people it has hurt. I do not want to become someone capable of that.”

Viktor’s thumb rubs against the back of Yuuri’s hand. “You could never be capable of that kind of cruelty, Yuuri,” he breathes. “Firebender or not.”

Yuuri knows it sounds pathetic, like he’s fishing for reassurance, but he can’t stop himself from asking, “How can you be so sure?”

Viktor hums and detangles his fingers from Yuuri’s. He traces designs on Yuuri’s palm with his forefinger—snowflakes, Yuuri realizes.

“I have seen people be cruel. You know about—about my parents. You know it was firebenders, that were responsible. But I’ve also seen my own people do things… horrible things, unspeakable—with water, with weapons, with anything. Fire or no fire.”

Yuuri shudders. He swallows back the truth, searching for a version that is more palatable. “It just—it feels like it’s in my blood, sometimes.” No matter what he does, he will always be the Firelord’s grandson. In another world, where his anxious nature didn’t make him such a late-bloomer, he would one day have become Firelord himself. How many deaths—how much abject _misery,_ for his own people as well as the rest of the world _—_ would that crown have been responsible for before it was placed on his head?

“You’re Yuuri,” Viktor replies simply. “Just Yuuri. And you are not cruel.”

Viktor’s words sink slowly into Yuuri’s mind and the heat of his hand into Yuuri’s skin. They stare up at the sky together, watching the blinking stars, neither even dreaming of moving. It feels like a lifetime has passed before Viktor finishes, breathing the words quietly into the cold air:

“...That’s all that matters.”

 

❄

 

There are some things that are universal, Yuuri discovers as Yuri drags a Pai Sho board into the living room.

“You play?” the boy asks.

“You— I—” Yuuri snaps his hanging jaw back into place. “Yes, of course.”

“Good. Get ready to be _demolished.”_

Yuuri, who spent hours holed up with his older sister playing this game (ostensibly to teach him strategy, but really to keep his tutors off his back when he was anxious), barks a laugh in response. “I’d like to see you try!”

 _“Yuu-_ ri,” Viktor purrs, “I didn’t know you played Pai Sho. Do you think you could beat me?”

Yuri snorts. “A turtle-seal could beat you.”

 _“Tsk._ Only a very talented turtle-seal.”

In the first round, Viktor overthinks everything and loses swiftly to both his brother and Yuuri. Yuuri and Yuri’s match, on the other hand, lasts so long into the afternoon that Viktor begs they call it a draw.

“No way!”

“Are you kidding?”

Viktor huffs, resting his face on his palms. “Well, I’m bored.”

“We’re almost done!”

“You said that an hour ago!”

Yuri growls. “It’s not my fault he doesn’t know when to give up.”

“Me?” Yuuri smiles innocently. “I’ve been winning for the last half-hour.”

“Ah, well, in that case…” Viktor reaches over and pulls Makkachin into his lap, taking her front paws in his hands and waving them in the air. “Go, Yuuri!” says Viktor.

 _Woof,_ says Makkachin.

Yuri frowns. “Which Yuri?”

“My Yuuri!”

Yuuri blushes so hard he fumbles his next move. Yuri swipes one of his pieces from the board with a vengeance.

“Ah-hah!”

In the end, they give in and call it a draw, and for the next few weeks Yuri makes it his mission to beat Yuuri. Their victories, frustratingly, seem to alternate, neither able to garner a significant winning streak. When Yuuri first wins, Viktor throws his arms over his shoulders in congratulations and coos something in his ear like, “Yuuri, so _smart,_ you’re amazing!” to which Yuri responds by gagging.

“You two are disgusting,” he complains one evening. “You’d think you’d get it all out of your system wherever you go every night, but no, you’ve got to subject me to it too. Eugh.”

Yuuri and Viktor blanch, shooting each other a look out of the corner of their eyes.

“See! Look at you two! Where do you even— actually wait, no, I don’t want to know, you two are _disgusting,_ honestly…”

“Ah, Yuri, it’s not what you think,” Yuuri tries to assure him, but the boy just covers his ears with his hands.

“I said I don’t. Want. To know.”

And that’s just as well, Yuuri supposes, because it’s not like they have formed a back-up explanation. Still, the insinuation that he— and _Viktor—_ Well. It’s best to just leave it.

 

❄

 

As spring melts into summer, the days grow longer and their practices shorter and, eventually, the inevitable happens.

They are running through their forms side by side, water and fire streaming through the air in tandem. Despite the necessary differences in technique, their movements are entirely synchronized; when Viktor moves, Yuuri moves, and vice-versa. After so much practice, these forms have ingrained themselves in Yuuri’s muscles and chi so deeply that he can let his mind go blank as he bends. It is calming. Peaceful—perhaps enough that, for a moment, Yuuri is fool enough to let down his guard.

It happens quickly, then—from Yuuri’s fingertips shoots a plume of wayward flames and Viktor collapses to the ground with a scream.

(Yuuri will hear that scream in his nightmares for months to come, and the _stench—)_

Not a moment passes before Yuuri falls to the ground next to him, a wave of nauseated horror leaving him gasping. “Viktor! _Viktor!”_ he begs, his shaking hands reaching, grasping, _useless_ to do anything but hover over the damage they have done.

There was nothing but a thin layer of fabric to protect Viktor’s skin—fabric that has now been singed away to nothing, exposing the horrible, _furious_ red of his forearms instead of the lovely cream-colored skin that should have lay beneath. Viktor is doubled over on the ground, his breaths coming out ragged. Yuuri’s own lungs seize, making it impossible to draw breath at all. His guilty hands hang helplessly in front of him.

“Oh my god, oh my _god oh my—”_

“I’m okay,” Viktor hisses, wasting no more time. The snow in front of his hunched body turns into a small basin of ice, and with the twitch of a few fingers fills with water.

With a hiss he plunges his forearms below the surface, and the water begins to glow.

“There, all better,” Viktor declares, withdrawing his arms to display perfectly unblemished skin.

Then he smiles at Yuuri, wide and bright as if nothing had happened at all.

“Viktor…”

“Really, Yuuri, it’s alright. No harm done!”

Yuuri can still hear Viktor’s cry of pain ringing in his ears. “I— I _burned_ you—”

“And I healed it. It won’t even scar! This was bound to happen at some point— honestly I’m surprised it didn’t happen earlier.”

“You— _what?”_

Viktor cocks his head. “Are _you_ alright? You look pale.” He reaches out to take Yuuri’s hand but Yuuri jerks it back the second Viktor’s freezing skin touches his own.

“No, don’t…”

Viktor stares at him a moment longer, his expression indecipherable. “Ah, well. We should probably call it a night.”

They haven’t even danced yet, but the instinct to run is tugging at his legs. His stomach churns violently every time he looks Viktor in the eye. It’s not sustainable.

“Okay,” he replies, his voice as brittle as ice.

They pack up and make the trek down to the city in silence, Yuuri trailing behind Viktor as they carefully navigate the steep staircase of ice and the still-sleeping city. When they get back to the house, Viktor hangs the pack of supplies on a hook on the wall and heads toward the bedrooms. He pauses just before the curtain.

“Are you going to bed?” he asks in a whisper.

Yuuri feels very far away, standing in the center of the room with his arms limp at his sides. The fire burns low in the hearth, taunting him.

“Or you could stay out here and warm up. You’re shivering.”

“I… it’s alright,” Yuuri forces out, but doesn’t move.

“Hm. I’m a bit cold, too. Why don’t I make us some tea?”

Viktor urges him toward the fire, pressing on his shoulders to make him sit down, then places a few new logs on the fire, collects the ceramic teapot, and fills it with water.

“Would you mind…?” he begins, looking between Yuuri and the glowing embers. The last thing Yuuri wants to do right now is firebend, but it’s _Viktor,_ so he reaches out with his energy to connect with the fire. He takes a deep breath and as his lungs expand the fire swells, catching on the unburned driftwood. The sea-bleached logs begin to crackle and turn ash-black where the flames lick at their edges. “Thank you,” Viktor says and hooks the teapot over the fire. Yuuri does not allow himself to breathe until there is a safe distance between Viktor’s body and the flames.

Silence ensues and weighs heavy on Yuuri’s shoulders. He flinches when the fire pops and sparks—by the change in Viktor’s breathing, Yuuri realizes he must have noticed.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Yuuri sighs, wrapping his arms around his legs and resting his chin on his knees.

“Do you?”

“Yes. But I can’t help the way I feel.”

It’s probably not true. Yuuri could _probably_ shove away the guilt if he tried hard enough, but it would only come back later, even stronger and louder than before.

Viktor shrugs. “Accidents happen.”

That is not what Yuuri’s mother would have said. Granted, his mother could not have healed a burn in three seconds flat, but even if she could— accidents happen, and then their consequences. Yuuri cannot, could _never,_ afford this kind of carelessness.

The water in the teapot comes to boil and Viktor kneels before the fire, pulling it from the heat and setting in the leaves to steep. Yuuri holds his breath again. Viktor sets out two teacups and sits back to wait.

The cups are small and delicate; someone has painted intricate designs in blue, brown, and white around the rims. When the tea finishes steeping, Viktor fills them with steaming water colored a pale orange-yellow. A lovely, warm scent hits Yuuri’s nose as Viktor places the cup in his hands.

“Thank you,” Yuuri says because it is all that will come out, but there is much more than that boiling away in his chest. Someone in this tribe collected these leaves, and still someone else dried and mixed them; someone shaped the teapot and cups with their own hands, and someone painted them with careful detail. Then Viktor boiled the water, portioned the leaves, poured the tea and placed it before Yuuri.

Yuuri is the enemy, and still Viktor took him in, healed him, bathed him, clothed him, fed him, taught him, and made him tea in the dead of night because he noticed a small shiver. Viktor—and his entire _tribe—_ have been providing for Yuuri for months and all Yuuri has done is take and take and take, giving nothing in return but careless fire that would sear the skin from Viktor’s bones and make him scream out in pain.

Yuuri takes the tea in shaking hands and sips, the liquid burning his tongue. It is more bitter than he expected, and he sets it down to cool. There’s another apology reaching up like a flame from his throat, but Yuuri keeps his mouth clamped shut to suffocate it. Viktor does not want to hear his apologies, and Yuuri does not want to hear Viktor’s unfair, unthinking forgiveness.

A warm weight on Yuuri’s arm makes him look up. Viktor does this often, in those stolen minutes, sometimes hours, between the end of their practice and their return to the city. He will reach out across the space between them as they lie together on the blanket, looking at the stars; the first few times, he had tensed like he expected Yuuri to pull his hand away.

But Yuuri never did, and he is not about to start tonight. He doesn’t say anything because everything that matters has been said—Yuuri’s apologies, Viktor’s forgiveness, Yuuri’s doubts, Viktor’s reassurance. They could go in circles, if they wanted, and end up dizzy and exhausted and back where they started.

Or Yuuri could scoot over, closing the space between them, and lay his head on Viktor’s shoulder.

In the end, he does just that. “Is this okay?” he asks, because while Viktor usually takes _not pulling away_ as permission, Yuuri needs more vocal assurance that he hasn’t overstepped, that it’s not too much, that Viktor wants Yuuri to press himself close and seek this reassurance far more meaningful than words could ever provide.

Viktor’s shoulders rise as he takes a measured breath. He replies, “Of course,” and Yuuri mouths the words along with him. Viktor pulls his arm back from Yuuri’s and lets it drape instead across Yuuri’s back, resting on his side and holding him secure. His head tips to the side to lay atop Yuuri’s, a soft, welcome weight.

They don’t say another word.

 

❄

 

The next evening, Yuuri and Viktor are exhausted and elect to take the night off. Their practices are so short anyhow, this near the solstice. Instead of practicing bending and dance, once Yuri has gone to sleep Yuuri attempts to teach Viktor some of the Pai Sho strategies he uses to beat them. Viktor is a very fast learner, but also quick to overthink. Over and over again this is his downfall, until he finally manages to win a game—Yuuri throws his arms over Viktor’s shoulders in celebration when he swipes away Yuuri’s final piece.

“ _Yuu-_ ri,” Viktor purrs in his ear, “I’ll be very upset if I find out you went easy on me.”

“I didn’t!”

“Promise?”

“I swear.”

When Yuuri pulls back, he sees Viktor’s face stretch into a grin. “ _Wow!_ It seems we both have a lot to learn from each other.”

Yuuri snorts and starts stacking up the round tiles that had scattered when Yuuri leaped across the board. “It seems we do. If only I could just learn waterbending.”

Viktor frowns. “I think we’re doing a fine job teaching you firebending, all things considered,” he whispers. Thankfully, Yuri is a heavy sleeper; they can hear him snoring from the other room.

“Yes, well.” Yuuri sighs. “You know as well as I do that there are waterbending skills that will never translate.”

“Hm? Like what?”

Yuuri blinks. “Um. Healing?” It was only Viktor’s primary passion, had he really forgotten?

But Viktor only shrugs as he folds up the Pai Sho board. “I don’t see why not.”

“…Why not what?”

“Why it couldn’t translate.”

Viktor surely makes sense in his own head, but none of this is clicking in Yuuri’s. “I’m sorry?”

“All I am doing when I heal is using my own chi to connect with another’s and help it along. Both firebenders and waterbenders see their elements as extensions of their own energy. Now earthbenders, not so much, and airbenders… well, maybe. I don’t know, honestly. But fire, I— well. Does it really sound so impossible?”

 _Yes,_ Yuuri thinks when he finally understands what Viktor is suggesting. But he looks so earnest, so _excited,_ sitting there with his legs crossed in front of him and his eyes wide as he explains his theory, that Yuuri almost does not want to reply.

“Viktor, that— that’s ridiculous.”

“Why?”

“Look what I did yesterday!” Yuuri waves his hands rhetorically at Viktor’s unblemished arms. With a glance back toward the bedrooms, he schools his voice back to a whisper. “I burned, you healed. Fire doesn’t— fire _can’t—”_

“Yuuri, please. Your inner-fire isn’t any different from my inner… inner- _water._ They’re both just flows of chi.”

The thing is, Viktor isn’t wrong. His theory, when Yuuri really thinks about it, doesn’t seem entirely impossible.

But in _practice_ it sounds certifiably insane.

“You could try it, you know,” Viktor suggests, scooting closer to Yuuri and reaching out to join their hands between them. “If you want to find out.”

“I— are you—  _what?!"_ Yuuri hisses

“Not to heal! Just to see if you can connect your chi to mine."

"Here? Now?!"

"Yura's fast asleep, it's just you and me.”

Horror bubbles in Yuuri’s stomach, burning at the base of his throat and filling his nose with the remembered stench of burning flesh. “You… you aren’t serious.”

“I am! Yuuri, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“I could burn you! I could _kill you,_ Viktor—”

“You won’t,” Viktor dismisses. He pulls his hands from Yuuri’s for a moment to roll up his sleeve. “You’d just place your hands here—look, not near any major organs—and then you’ll just… reach out, and try to make your chi touch mine.”

 _And when I burn you?_ Yuuri wants to ask, but he already knows the answer. Viktor would heal himself, just like he did the night before, and continue smiling cheerfully as if nothing had happened at all.

In his lap, Yuuri’s balled fingers twitch, betraying him and itching to reach out like Viktor suggests. The idea, once Yuuri allows himself to consider it, is dangerously tempting. He has such trouble saying no to this man.

And if it were true, what that would _mean…_

Yuuri stretches out his arms, allowing his fists to unravel and his palms to lay flat on Viktor’s forearm. His hands are steady and his breaths forcibly even, but his mind reels.

“If I hurt you…” Yuuri whispers, not tearing his gaze from Viktor’s perfect, cream-colored skin.

“You won’t,” Viktor breathes, warmth brushing Yuuri’s cheek. He shivers.

When Yuuri closes his eyes and focuses closely, he can feel Viktor’s pulse beneath his skin; it throbs steadily, if a bit quickly, and speeds up when Yuuri slides one hand slightly higher on Viktor’s arm.

All of the warmth in Yuuri’s body, he concentrates into his hands as if he were going to create fire; he can hardly breathe for the fear that his control will slip and he will do precisely that. But as he channels his energy to the man sitting before him, as he feels that energy pool in the negative space between their bodies, he realizes that this feels entirely different from shooting flames from his fingertips. No, the chi that usually expresses itself as fire has found a new form as it seeps under Viktor’s skin: warm but not burning, comforting like the gentle heat that radiates out from the hearth. Tendrils of soothing flame bloom and curl from Yuuri into Viktor, reaching out and—

There. _There._ Yuuri recognizes Viktor’s chi from all the times it had reached into Yuuri to heal him. The role reversal is striking, even if there is nothing for Yuuri to heal. Viktor’s chi flows like a healthy, roaring river and Yuuri is afraid, for both of their sakes, of letting his inner-fire touch it.

He should know better by now. When Yuuri’s fire reaches out to Viktor’s water, the current parts around the flame as if to welcome him. The cool touch of Viktor’s chi is wonderfully familiar.

“Oh,” Yuuri breathes.

“ _Yuuri,”_ Viktor gasps.

And it’s Viktor’s turn, now, to throw his arms over Yuuri’s shoulders in celebration.

 

❄

 

The next morning, feeling better rested than he has in months, Yuuri wakes up early and prepares breakfast. They had servants to cook for them, but his mother had still taught him the basics, and he has watched Viktor prepare meals for long enough to understand how to make a basic porridge with water tribe ingredients. 

It’s not enough, Yuuri knows, but it’s something.

Yuri scarfs his bowl down before he leaves for classes that morning, tossing his overgrown bangs out of his eyes and a _thank you_ over his shoulder as he walks out the front door. Viktor, on the other hand, took his time bathing and entered the living room ten minutes later with wet hair and a broad smile stretching across his face, seemingly uncaring that he’s supposed to be meeting Yakov for training in only a few minutes.

“Yuuri! This is so nice of you!” he exclaims as he bends the water from his hair and evaporates it into the air. The lovely silver strands fall over his shoulders, completely tangled and disheveled. “The drawbacks of having beautiful hair,” he says with a wink, and spoons himself some porridge. He eats it almost as quickly as Yuri, that same smile on his face the whole time, before procuring a comb from his pocket with a sigh.

“I can do it,” Yuuri blurts before he can stop himself.

And that’s how he finds himself kneeling behind Viktor, enjoying the silk of his hair running between his fingers as he brushes out each and every knot with singular precision. Viktor shudders when Yuuri touches his scalp or accidentally brushes his fingers against the side of his neck. Yuuri counts backward from one hundred in his head and focuses very closely on the job at hand.

“You are very good at this,” Viktor observes, and just those words send a thrill down Yuuri’s spine.

“Ah, uh, I— thank you.”

“I can show you how I braid it, afterward.”

“That would be nice.”

“Mm. Yes, it would.”

It is a moment so intimate it almost doesn’t feel real. Yuuri cannot see Viktor’s eyes but he can imagine them clearly with every stroke of his fingers through his hair, blue like pools of melting ice, as refreshing as his healing touch on Yuuri’s skin.

“Thank you, Yuuri,” Viktor says once every strand runs smoothly through his hand. He does this once, twice, and even from behind Yuuri can see the corner of his mouth twitch upward in something like wonder.

“You’re welcome, Viktor.”

“Vitya.”

Yuuri blinks.

“Huh?”

Viktor turns, the smile Yuuri was expecting lighting up his face like sunshine. He might as well be the sun, for how warm and rejuvenated his presence makes Yuuri feel.

“Call me Vitya?”

Yuuri reaches out, gathers Viktor’s sleek hair in his palm, and drapes it neatly over Viktor’s shoulder.

“You’re welcome, Vitya.”

(And it’s still not enough—but again, it’s _something._ )

 

❄

 

As suspected, even making breakfast and combing Viktor’s hair do not stave off the guilt for long. It returns with a vengeance, the day of the summer solstice banquet.

Viktor had warned him this would happen far in advance, of course. The solstice brought with it two notable traditions, one that Viktor loves (the banquet) and another he dreads (the turtle-seal-hunting expedition). He does not tell Yuuri his preferences so much as show them, in the way he lights up when he speaks of the performance he’s been practicing for the banquet and the roast platypus-bear that is his favorite dish, and the cloud that descends over him when he tells Yuuri he’ll have to leave him alone with Yuri for four days when he goes on the expedition.

“Yuri isn’t going?”

“He’s too young. Not that he hasn’t tried to argue otherwise. I once caught him trying to stow away on the sled that carries the camping equipment.”

“How old was he?”

Viktor chuckles. “Six.”

Yuuri, on the other hand, dreads both occasions: both the banquet and the separation from Viktor. He still gets stares on the sidewalks on the rare occasion he wanders out into the city with Viktor at his side, many people not even having the tact to disguise their distaste.

And there’s also the matter of how _smashingly_ drunk he got at the last banquet. He’s not sure why the whole tribe doesn’t just send him off in a skiff, at this point.

The evening of the banquet, Viktor does Yuuri’s hair, which hasn’t been properly cut in months, into a traditional half-up, half-down style, and dresses him in deep blue robes lined with extravagant furs and intricate embroidery. Viktor himself looks absolutely stunning, his attire more form-fitting but loose around the upper arms, making it suitable for dance.

Yuuri knows what he is getting into now, but Viktor’s performance still steals his breath right from his lungs. This time, however, he aches to join Viktor on that stage, to move alongside him the way they practice when it’s just the two of them choreographing their routine, atop the cliffs and beneath the stars. Yuuri does not know this particular routine because Viktor has never demonstrated it, but every movement resonates as deeply within Yuuri as if he had known the whole thing by heart. When Viktor sits back at Yuuri’s side and the wild applause dies out, Yuuri slips his hand into Viktor’s beneath the table, threading their fingers together. Viktor straightens, first, and then relaxes into a warm smile. He squeezes Yuuri’s hand in acknowledgement, and Yuuri feels…

Spectacularly unworthy.

Though no one can see how they hold one another, Yuuri still feels the stares from every table spread across the central plaza, reinforcing what Yuuri already knows. The chief’s son, sitting at the high table, has the most scrutinizing and resentful stare of all. Yuuri withers beneath it.

After the performances, the chief stands to announce the annual turtle-seal-hunting expedition.

“This year, the expedition will be led by my son, Ivan,” he pronounces. “Viktor will be his second in command. All those who wish to join them, please stand.”

Maybe it was because he burned Viktor. Maybe because nearly all of the people at this banquet, including the man who took Yuuri into his home and his heart, have lost someone they loved to a war perpetrated by Yuuri’s bloodline. Maybe it’s all of this, the guilt that’s been threading through his veins like poison for weeks.

Maybe it’s just that he wants to prove himself.

It doesn’t matter why, in the end; only that, when the chief asks for volunteers, Yuuri swallows his fear and stands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 2019 everyone! Thank you so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed! There will be one more chapter and then an epilogue (that will probably still be just as long as a full chapter). The Ch. 3 is very much still in the works, so it will probably be a few weeks before I’m able to post it. 
> 
> Please leave a comment if you feel so inclined <3 Your feedback means the world to me!
> 
> find me on tumblr at stammiviktor! you can also find my a:tla fanfics under penname [monpetitpois](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monpetitpois/works)!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Hello! You might notice that I changed the chapter count from 4 to 5! What was supposed to be chapter three got way out of hand and, long story short, I ended up splitting it in two. There will be more fluff this way :)
> 
> **Trigger warning:** This chapter contains descriptions of serious peril. If you would like a bit more information before reading, I’ve put a general description (with a bit of a spoiler) in the end notes. 
> 
> As usual, thank you Rachel for betaing!

They set out a few hours before dusk, eight men in four sleighs piled high with supplies. At any other time of year, darkness would have long settled across the icy plains, but on the day after the solstice the sun hangs low and stubborn over the horizon. The empty expanse of snow shimmers nearly golden in this light; at the helm of the sleigh next to Yuuri, Viktor’s hair shines just the same as it whips in the wind.

They race west along the glacial coastline, flying over the snow at a speed that, for the first few minutes, has Yuuri’s stomach jumping from his body. The polar bear dogs, far larger and whiter than runt-of-the-litter Makkachin, are faster than Yuuri could have ever imagined after a lifetime of servant-borne palanquins and the occasional royal carriage ride—the animals cover the icy terrain in leaps and bounds, their paws never seeming to quite make contact with the ground. If it weren’t for Viktor sitting next to him, Yuuri wouldn’t have been able to take his eyes off of their rippling muscles and adorably soft-looking fur. He wonders if Viktor misses Makkachin as much as Yuuri already does.

It’s almost like being at sea, perched on a small slab of wood and surrounded by stretches of nothingness as far as the eye can see: ocean to the left, empty glacial wilderness to the right. He is not alone, though. He is here with Viktor, six other warriors, and eight beautiful dogs, and they know what they’re doing. They know where they’re going. 

Viktor is quiet. At first, Yuuri assumes he is concentrating on steering the dogsled, but as the landscape drags on and the sun sinks even lower, it becomes clear that this doesn’t require much of his attention at all. The tension in his shoulders must be coming from something else.

It’s not hard to guess what.

The night before, the chief had asked for volunteers in a tradition that, it turns out, was mostly ceremonial. They had already determined, if only implicitly, who would set out on the summer expedition: Ivan, Viktor, and six other warriors whom Yuuri had never met, but one of whom had coincidentally (and fortuitously for Yuuri) fallen ill with a cold.

Viktor had objected immediately, practically pushing Yuuri back into his chair and spewing elegant excuses to the chief and all those gathered about _why_ Yuuri would be horrendously unfit for a hunting expedition.

And Viktor had a point. He had many points. Yuuri has no experience withstanding prolonged cold, no experience with hunting, no experience with the terrain, no experience with any of the other members of the expedition, and it was a horrible, if well-intentioned, idea that everyone should discard immediately.

There had been something in Viktor’s eyes as he spoke, something he tried to hide beneath his measured logic but that slipped through all the same—anger, fear, and even a hint of betrayal. His request was reasonable. Yuuri knew this.

But there was one thing that Yuuri hated more than being talked down to, and that was being talked down _about_. So he stood back up and he argued for his place, and Viktor hardly said a word to him at home the next day. Now here they are, far past the point of no return.

An hour into their trip, Viktor is still quiet.

“Vitya…” Yuuri tries. The wind whistles past their ears and tries to steal his voice, but Viktor’s grip tightens on the reigns and Yuuri knows he hears.

“Yes?”

“If you’re mad, you should just say so.”

Viktor steals the briefest of glances sideways, and Yuuri catches an indiscernible flash of ocean-blue irises before Viktor returns his gaze to the land stretched ahead of them. “I’m not mad.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not.”

_“Vitya…”_

It’s a cheap move, Yuuri knows, saying Viktor’s name in that way he’s powerless to resist. Usually it makes him smile like the sun; today, his mouth remains pressed in a firm line, even as a little bit of tension drains from his shoulders.

“I’m not mad, Yuuri.” There’s an _anymore_ lingering somewhere behind Viktor’s lips.

“I had to do it,” Yuuri excuses, for what must be the tenth time in the past day. It’s not strictly true, Yuuri didn’t _have_ to do anything, but it’s the only explanation he has. “I want to contribute. I’m tired of taking everything and not being able to help out in return.”

_You do!_ Viktor had objected the first few times Yuuri said this, but he stays silent now. Surely he’s tired of hearing this. Yuuri’s stomach, safely back inside of his body now that he’s used to their fast-paced travel, twists into knots with every second Viktor stays silent.

He looks like he’s thinking about something, like he would have brought that pensive finger up to his lips if he weren’t using both hands to grip the reigns.

It turns out he doesn’t need both hands, though, when a few minutes later, Viktor takes off one of his gloves and reaches over to settle his palm over the anxious fist Yuuri has balled around the material of his pants. Yuuri’s heart leaps from his chest, threatening to fall out of the sleigh. If it was hard to breathe before, with frozen air whipping at his face, it feels nearly impossible now.

Yuuri untangles his fingers from his pants, flips his hand over, and re-tangles his fingers with Viktor’s just as fiercely.

“Don’t worry,” Yuuri says as the sun sinks below the horizon and the sleighs in front of them slow to a stop. “Everything is going to be fine.”

 

❄

 

Base camp is four two-person tents set up in a loose circle around a firepit, sheltered by a bluff from the flat terrain’s glacial winds. Viktor constructs a few ice structures off to the side to house the dogs and their sleighs from the cold. The whole set-up is surprisingly comfortable. 

...Or, it will be comfortable once Ivan gets the campfire started. He strikes the spark rocks once, twice, ten times while Yuuri sits on his hands and draws progressively closer to Viktor, radiating as much heat as possible to at least keep _him_ warm. Now that Yuuri has spent a little more time with Ivan, he can see why Yuri so openly despises him; it has been almost ten minutes without a fire, yet Ivan’s pride won’t let him take anyone’s offers for help. Unbent flames itch in Yuuri’s palms.

Eventually, Ivan manages to create a spark and the fire catches on the logs. The entire camp heaves a sigh of relief and sits down on the ice-block benches one of the other benders had created. Yuuri wishes he could remember all of their names, but so many of them sound the same—Ivan, Igor, Ilia, and maybe one named Maxim? Wasn’t there a Dmitri, too? And a Sasha? They look the same, too, with their light skin and light eyes bundled beneath the same fur-lined, navy-blue parkas.

“You must be freezing,” Ivan says, and it takes Yuuri a moment too long to realize all eyes are fixed on him. “Being from somewhere so much warmer, I mean.”

“Ah. Yes, this is different.”

The warrior to Yuuri’s right passes him a few pieces of blubbered seal-jerky, and Yuuri whispers _thank you_ and nibbles at the end; this bizarre method for preserving meat requires much more chewing than he is used to.

“No worries, though!” Ivan grins. “You’ve got to build up a tolerance. I once stayed in freezing water for three minutes, didn’t even lose any of my toes—”

“Oh bullshit, Vanya,” one of the warriors quips, “it wasn’t even forty seconds.”

“Still lasted longer than all of you, didn’t I?” Ivan takes a large swig from the flask in his hand and holds it out to Yuuri. “Want some? Helps with the cold, you might need it.”

“No, thank you.”

Ivan snorts. “Right. That’s another thing you’ve got to build up tolerance for, I suppose. Not that you didn’t put on quite the enjoyable show at the last banquet, but holding your liquor is a man’s art, here. Igosha, how many did I have again?”

The warrior to Ivan’s right scoffs and takes the flask from his hand, knocking back a shot. “Fuck if I know, I’m not your mother. Five glasses, I guess?”

“More like six,” Ivan corrects, his chest puffed out like a balloon. “I didn’t so much as stumble.”

“Yuuri had ten.” That’s Viktor’s voice. Yuuri’s head whips to his left, jaw dropping. “And he danced like he was barely tipsy. But I don’t think I saw you on the dance floor the whole night, Ivan.”

“ _Vitya,”_ he hisses, because there’s no reason that night should ever be talked about again and really, _ten glasses?_ There is no way.

“Oh, you have him calling you Vitya now? Please. You’re just defending him because he spent the last half hour of the banquet grinding on you.”

The blood that had risen to Yuuri’s cheeks only seconds before drains almost instantly. “I— the— _what?!”_

Ivan laughs. “It’s alright, Yuuri, I’m sure he’s been wanting that from day one. You should have seen his face when we found you on that slab of wood—”

Viktor cuts him off. “Ivan, he was dying.”

“Sensitive, are we, O Master Healer? It’s just a joke. You’ve been spending too much time with the women.” The chief’s son rips a piece of jerky with his teeth. “Look, Yuuri,” he grumbles around a full mouth of food, “all I’m saying is the man’s creepily gone for you. It’s like he’s got no rational thinking all when you’re involved. Not that he had much in the first place.”

Viktor’s smile is tight and his eyes shuttered-over as laughter radiates around the campfire. Yuuri’s skin crawls and stomach roils, struck by the sudden but intractable realization that Viktor deserves much, much better than this. 

“Just because you’re incapable of understanding someone does not make them irrational.”

Yuuri should probably stop being shocked by the sound of his own voice, at some point. It’s either that, or get better control of his impulsive, treasonous vocal chords.

In the space of a moment, a hand comes to rest on his. “Yuuri, it’s alright.” Viktor’s touch is as cold as the ice beneath them but reassuring all the same; Yuuri can’t wait to hold his hands close and warm them back up.

Ivan, on the other side of the firepit, has his arms crossed over his chest, looking so much like a petulant child that Yuuri cannot believe this man is _older_ than him and not Yuri’s age.

“I’m going to bed. Early morning tomorrow,” he grunts, standing from the ice benches and heading to his tent. The other warriors shrug and follow his lead without so much as a word.

For a moment, after everyone else has disappeared, Yuuri and Viktor sit in loaded silence just like on the sled ride here. But then something tugs on Yuuri’s hand. “Come,” Viktor says as he stands, and when Yuuri looks up he sees the shutters vanish from Viktor’s eyes. Yuuri isn’t sure what changed, but this is Viktor, _just Viktor,_ offering to lead the way. 

“Okay.”

The tent, a bed of furs sheltered by a frame stretched with animal hide, is just barely big enough for two grown men and is only a few degrees warmer than the outside air. Still, the moment they enter and let the flap fall closed behind them, the space feels like a little pocket of home. They are far enough away from the other tents that they can speak softly without being heard, and after the encounter around the campfire Yuuri relishes the privacy. They tug off their boots and lay down side by side, each man pulling his own fur blanket over his body.

They have lain in such close quarters a number of times before, on their backs on a cliff surrounded by fields of ice, but it feels even closer now that they’re confined together in such an intimate space. Somehow, it’s still not enough. 

“You’re cold,” Yuuri observes, another role reversal for the books.

“It appears I am,” Viktor concedes. 

“I can fix that.”

Viktor’s responding laugh would have stung Yuuri’s soul if he did not sound so utterly, unbelievably delighted. 

“ _Please."_

Yuuri wastes no time before scooting closer, throwing the left side of his blanket over Viktor, and bringing the right side of Viktor’s blanket over himself to create a warm, shared space for them beneath. As if on instinct, they have curled in to face one another, lying on their sides with their heads so close that Yuuri can feel Viktor’s breath on his nose.

They both pillow one arm beneath their heads, leaving their other hands delightfully free to find one another. Their palms press together as if magnetized, bridging the little remaining space between their hearts.  

Yuuri closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and, when he exhales, radiates his inner-fire’s warmth from his mouth, his nose, his every pore. A small gasp tears out from Viktor’s lungs; any further away, and Yuuri might not have heard it.

“Is this better?”

Viktor is so close that Yuuri goes cross-eyed trying to look at him. The swirling blue of his irises is worth the strain, clear pools of water as inviting as the hot spring baths back home. Yuuri wants to slip into them and stay there forever.

Viktor replies, “It’s the best thing in the whole world.”

“Don’t exaggerate.”

“I’ve never exaggerated in my entire life.”

Yuuri laughs at that. He’s funny, _wow,_ Viktor is funny. And charming. And so clever, too, absolutely brilliant—

“Oh, that’s so nice,” Viktor sighs, so deeply it’s practically a moan. Yuuri realizes, belatedly, that fixating on Viktor’s loveliness has stoked his inner-fire and brought more heat to the space beneath their blankets. As Yuuri pours out heat to warm their bodies, he thinks: _there is nothing else like this._ Nothing in the human or spirit worlds could ever compare to what it feels like to take care of Vitya.

(With his firebending. His _firebending.)_

Still, he can clearly picture Viktor’s face from last night, that little hint of betrayal when Yuuri volunteered for this expedition without so much as consulting him. Now, he understands perfectly well why Viktor did not want him here. The worry Yuuri has caused him over the past day is unacceptable, his guilt standing in direct, heavy opposition to the heat in his chest that flutters in delight as he uses his body to keep Viktor warm.

“I’m sorry.”

Viktor’s eyes slip closed on an exhale. “You don’t have to—”

“I do,” Yuuri insists. “I should have consulted you first.”

“Yes,” Viktor admits. “But I should apologize, too. I’ve been… unfair. You deserve better.” His fingers, warmer now, thread through Yuuri’s and hold them tight. “I was just worried.”

“I didn’t mean to worry you. I didn’t even know I was going to do it until I was already standing. That… happens sometimes. With me. I don’t always think things through.”

“You don’t have to,” Viktor whispers, so close Yuuri can practically taste the words on his own tongue. “I like surprises, and you surprise me all the time. It’s part of what makes you Yuuri.”

Yuuri blushes, radiating even more heat from his face. Luckily, he doubts Viktor minds.

“Besides, for selfish reasons, I’m glad you’re here. This is so much better than sharing a tent with Vladimir.”

Yuuri snorts—not an attractive sound by any means, but Viktor smiles.

“Yuuri?” 

“Yes?” 

“I have a surprise of my own that I think you might like. If you let me.” 

“Really?” 

“Mhm.” Viktor licks his lips, and Yuuri cannot look away. “I’m not sure if it will actually come as a surprise, though.”

“Please,” Yuuri breathes, unsure what he means, unsure what he expects, but in that moment knowing fiercely, desperately, what he _wants._ “Ple—”

Viktor steals the plea from Yuuri’s lips with his own.

Yuuri has held pure fire in his hands, but still he has felt nothing as lightning-hot as that first touch of Viktor’s mouth that parts around Yuuri’s and sends a bolt of electricity down his spine. In the immediate aftermath, with his body crackling and his lips and tongue burning, he can only melt into Viktor’s kiss and let himself be enveloped and cared for and _moved._ They kiss like they dance, in a push and pull, give and take, lead and follow that reminds Yuuri of waterbending and the particular brand of firebending he has come to know and love.

They move so well together, they always have, but nothing has felt as natural as the intimacy they share now.

Yuuri, who doubts himself and his worth and his actions at every turn, does not doubt _this_ for a second. Not when Viktor has taken hold of him so deeply and decisively that he couldn’t give this moment words if he tried; not when Viktor is kissing him, touching him, breathing him like every twinge of desperation and elation that jerks at Yuuri’s ribcage is felt by Viktor just the same.

Even when they part, Yuuri can still feel Viktor on his lips. “You should surprise me more often,” Yuuri whispers. He pulls back just enough to look Viktor in the eyes and finds the sea-blue waters shimmering. Viktor looks just as dazed and blissed-out as Yuuri feels.

“I would love to." 

A pair of warm arms wraps around Yuuri’s torso to pull him close, and Yuuri sinks into Viktor’s body without complaint. His head fits just perfectly tucked below Viktor’s chin, his face buried in the fur collar of Viktor’s coat; he snakes an arm low around Viktor’s hip and hugs him back.

Yuuri feels so warm. So safe. So comfortable. Viktor’s heart beats steadily just below his ear. 

“Vitya,” he says.

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Just…” He sighs. _“Vitya.”_

A pleased sound emanates from Viktor’s throat, seemingly without his permission. “I love when you say my name like that.”

Hidden in Viktor’s coat, Yuuri’s mouth tugs into a sleepy smile. “I know.”

There’s a low rumble in Viktor’s chest. “Yuuri…”

“I like when you say my name, too.”

“Good. You have the most beautiful name.” The softest, warmest of kisses caresses Yuuri’s forehead. “Go to sleep, my Yuuri.”

Yuuri hums in pleasure. “You too.”

“Alright.”

The summer night is short, but in Viktor’s arms Yuuri has the best sleep of his life.

 

❄

 

“I thought you said we were hunting.”

“Did I?”

“Vitya.”

“I said it was a hunting expedition. No one said that was what _we_ would be doing.”

Yuuri huffs as he watches Viktor demonstrate yet again how to chop driftwood with an axe. “I think it was a pretty reasonable assumption to make.”

Viktor swings the axe, splits the log, and lets a piece fall to the ground with a _thud._ He glances at Yuuri out of the corner of his eye. “Help me put this on the sled?" 

“Okay.”

Their pile is small, but the day is young yet. It took them about an hour after the rest of their party took off on their polar bear dogs with spears in hand for Viktor to find this particular location along the water, dotted with bleached branches from trees big and small that have washed up to shore. Yuuri is still unsure how to wield the axe. 

“Scavenging for firewood is just as important as hunting for meat. Someone has to do it, even if it’s less… Oh, I don’t know. Glorious.” He smirks. “Ivan never wants to do it.” He dusts off the splintered wood from his gloves, rounding the front of the sled toward one of the polar bear dogs that have been tasked with pulling it for the day. He scratches the animal’s chin. “I prefer it, though. I thought you might too.”

Yuuri cocks his head. “You don’t like hunting.” A question and a realization wrapped into one.

“Not particularly, no,” Viktor admits. He scratches the dog’s fur with as much care as he affords Yuuri every time they touch.

“Because you don’t want to kill?”

Viktor huffs. “I know it’s hypocritical, since I have no problem eating the meat. Maybe it’s cowardly. I’ll do it if I have to, but if I can get out of it...”

“I understand.” Yuuri buries his hands in the other dog’s fur, relishing the warmth. The animal practically purrs in delight, its sharp eyes sliding closed. He imagines what it would be like to watch that warmth slip away, to see the life drain from its eyes knowing _he_ was the only cause—polar bear dog or turtle seal or turtle _duck,_ the thought makes his stomach churn. “Honestly, I don’t want to do it either. And since Ivan and the others seem eager enough, well.” He shrugs. “I prefer this, too.”

The process is fairly monotonous, but they chop and collect a respectable amount of firewood that day, stopping only for a lunch break around what Viktor claims to be midday. The twenty-hour days have completely ruined Yuuri’s internal clock—not that it was ever particularly well-calibrated in the first place, given his and Viktor’s self-inflicted nighttime practices. Yuuri only knows that, by the time they return to camp with a sled full of stacked driftwood, his limbs are heavy and freezing down to the bone.

They warm up around a campfire again that night; fortunately, Ivan manages to get the fire started within the first ten tries. They eat dinner—more blubbered seal-jerky—and listen to Ivan brag about the number of turtle seals he killed. Hunting is a more physically tiring pursuit than driftwood-collecting, he proclaims as his excuse for retiring to his tent soon after; the other warriors follow fairly quickly, leaving Yuuri and Viktor alone at the fire. 

Viktor has always looked like he belongs in the north, to the point that Yuuri once mistook him for the Ocean Spirit, but he has never looked more at home here than with midnight sun caressing his skin, turning his silver hair a shimmering gold and making his blue eyes sparkle. Yuuri savors every detail.

“Are you okay?”

Yuuri blinks. He’d been staring. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“No, you’re welcome to ogle me all you want,” Viktor chuckles. “I meant your hands.” 

Yuuri’s right hand is closed tightly around his left pinky finger. “Oh, it’s just a splinter.”

“A splinter!? And you didn’t tell me?”

“It’s no big deal!” Yuuri sputters.

“No, but it hurts and I can heal it, don’t be silly.”

It has been months since Viktor settled his healing water over Yuuri’s skin. _I missed this,_ Yuuri thinks as Viktor surrounds his pinky with cool, glowing liquid. The pad of his finger tingles as the skin knits itself back together, forcing out the shard of wood. Despite Viktor’s theory, and despite that night not so long ago when Yuuri successfully reached out to touch Viktor’s chi with his own, Yuuri still does not believe that his fire could do this. It only makes watching Viktor, working with his head bent low and his tongue peeking out between his lips, all the more amazing.

“Better?” Viktor asks, streaming the water back into the pot by the fire.

"Yes. Thank you.”

“Any time,” he replies, before pressing a kiss to the tip of Yuuri’s nearly-healed finger. His lips, while pink and supple and impossibly moisturized, are not as warm as they could be; feeling protective and grateful and just a little bit bold, Yuuri reaches out with his chi, takes hold of the campfire’s smoldering embers, and _breathes._

In the firepit, the charred logs glow brighter and radiate a new wave of heat. Even if the other warriors had been sitting across the campfire and not asleep in their tents, they would likely not have noticed the change. But Viktor does. When he registers Yuuri’s lovestruck attempts to keep him warm, he offers a smile and a pleased little hum.

Then out of nowhere, he asks, “When the war is over, are you going to go back home?” He keeps his voice low, caught somewhere near a whisper but still loud enough to rumble in his chest, and Yuuri notices, for the first time, that he is sitting close enough to feel it. How terrible, that there was a time when they didn’t allow themselves this automatic intimacy. At this point, it has become a reflex to drift as close to Viktor as possible. 

Yuuri lets himself consider the question, sparing only a quick glance around their campsite to ensure all of the warriors are still inside their tents. They have said nothing incriminating, even if they could be overheard—but still, Yuuri worries.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Peace is very hard to imagine." 

“It has to end eventually,” Viktor says. He has Yuuri’s hand lying palm-up on his lap; he traces swirls over Yuuri’s lifeline with his index finger, skating on the fine edge of his long nail. “There are rumors all the time. Why not in our lifetime? Why not tomorrow?” 

“I’ve never let myself picture it,” Yuuri whispers. The fire has died back down by now, its warmth barely grazing Yuuri’s cheeks. “Besides, I’m not sure there’s even a home to go back to.”

Viktor takes a steadying breath, likely attempting to be discrete but Yuuri notices all the same. The silence stretches longer than Yuuri expects, but sometimes Viktor needs time to formulate and reformulate his thoughts in his head. He must have something unpleasant to say, given how long he hesitates.

“Your family,” he begins eventually, every syllable carefully measured. Yuuri’s breath hitches. “That note. I never wanted to ask, but are they…?”

“They’re alive,” Yuuri replies, his shoulders curling in toward his chest, “as far as I know. But I don’t think I can go back.”

There’s a lump in his throat that won’t go away no matter how many times he swallows. He doesn’t expect Viktor to understand, not with so many secrets still between them, not when he cannot explain that he doesn’t belong in the palace he once called his home, nor can he recount the long, complicated reason why. Viktor cannot understand because he knows almost nothing true about Yuuri, and it’s a stark reminder that Yuuri doesn’t belong here, either.

“They love you, you know.”

A noise rises unbidden from somewhere deep in Yuuri’s chest. Every brush stroke of his mother’s parting note is burned onto the inside of his eyelids. She had signed the message with a lopsided heart.

_Never forget how much—_

“They love you, and they wanted you to remember that,” Viktor continues, abandoning the pattern he was drawing on Yuuri’s palm and squeezing his hand tightly in his own. “I don’t know anything else about them, but I know that.”

There are too many emotions battering against the inside of Yuuri’s ribcage for him to formulate a response. He grips Viktor’s hand like a lifeline and waits out the waves. 

“After the war is over, we’ll go together,” Viktor affirms. “To the— the Earth Kingdom. To your village. I always wanted to travel, you _know_ Yura does too, he’d be absolutely thrilled if we let him tag along.”

“You…” Yuuri clears his throat, blinks back the foggy wetness that had accumulated in his eyes. “You want to do that? You want to go to— to _my village?”_

“If the war is over and there’s no more danger, why not? I want to see where you come from.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Yuuri insists, and a little voice turns inward to demand, _and whose fault is that?_ Viktor expects a small island village, probably. He expects Yuuri’s parents to be artisans or tradesmen or fishermen living in a humble house of wood. And Yuuri himself cannot imagine stepping foot ever again inside the royal palace that had once been his home, but, for some reason that defies understanding, he can picture Viktor there as clear as day, dressed in red robes lined with gold and standing before the Firelord’s throne, his eyes blown wide with fear. Yuuri’s stomach roils.

Viktor exales, low and deep, and for a moment Yuuri thinks he’s driven Viktor to the point of exasperation. But then Viktor shifts, angling sideways on the ice-block bench so that they can face one another. The late-night sunset lasts so long that Viktor’s hair still shimmers silver-gold, a color that belongs in dreams or the spirit world but not in Yuuri’s reality. 

There is more compassion than Yuuri deserves etched in just the slope of Viktor’s left eyebrow, let alone in the entirety of his soft smile and fathomless ocean eyes and touch as soothing as water.

“I’m asking you to let me take care of you,” Viktor whispers. “Won’t you, please?”

This moment is made of so much more than Viktor’s words and touch. There are layers upon layers of meaning beneath and above and _transcending_ every syllable that reaches Yuuri’s ears, every sensation that registers on his skin. The meaning strikes down like an axe, hitting a place so deep within himself that Yuuri didn’t even know it existed— and cleaving that part of him in two.

It doesn’t hurt. Viktor couldn’t hurt him, not with words as soft as these, but it leaves Yuuri aching and breathless and spilling love like blood from the wound. He didn’t know he had so much of it shoved down so deep; he doesn’t even know how or when or _why_ he accomplished such a thorough repression. It’s very nearly overwhelming, how much he’s now allowing himself to feel.

And it’s too much, really; far too much for one man to handle on his own. Love is not meant to be bottled up and hoarded, it is meant to be given. 

Yuuri has so much love flooding his veins, his stomach, his chest, his throat—and he wants to give Viktor _all of it._

He surges forward, taking Viktor’s mouth in his and offering himself with touches caught somewhere between achingly tender and ravenously desperate. He pours every drop of himself into Viktor with the wet press of his lips and the searching swipe of his tongue, hoping all the while that this will be _enough._

And well, it certainly is, if Viktor’s reaction is anything to go by. He moans directly into Yuuri’s mouth, so low that it resonates from Viktor’s chest into Yuuri’s and radiates out to the tips of his toes. Viktor kisses him back with equal intensity, offering up his own love in exchange, and Yuuri can only accept, giving and taking until he is brimming, buzzing, shaking with it. 

Yuuri weaves an arm around Viktor’s back and up to the back of his neck, threading greedy fingers through Viktor’s hair to pull him even closer. When Viktor moves to stand from the bench, Yuuri moves with him, their bodies not parting even for a second as Viktor tugs them toward their tent. 

They fall inside ungracefully; their knees and teeth knock together, Viktor trips over Yuuri’s feet, and Yuuri pulls out at least one strand of Viktor’s hair on accident. They only laugh, low and breathless against each other’s mouths, and settle into the small bed atop the furs.

It defies understanding, how they could lie in a tiny tent on a frigid glacier with their bodies on fire, how Yuuri’s life spent cowering and hiding and triple-checking locks on closet doors could have led to this moment where he spills himself open in another man’s arms and allows himself unabashedly and without restraint to _feel._ He gives, and receives in equal measure.

“Viktor,” he breathes, because no other word makes sense. His only coherent thought, his only _anything,_ is, “ _Vitya.”_

“Yuuri…” Viktor replies in kind, purring out his name like every trill of his vocal cords holds a universe of meaning.

Together in the glacial wilderness of the north pole, the air around them sparks with heat. Yuuri sheds his parka, the furs suddenly too heavy for the spike in his body temperature since first bringing Viktor’s mouth to his. Viktor does not run hot the way Yuuri does, but he takes off his parka as well.

There are layers still between them, too many layers, and Yuuri wants them gone. The implications of this don’t register in his mind until Viktor strips off his robe and sits naked in front of Yuuri but for a pair of underwear. Yuuri pulls back for the briefest moment.

“We shouldn’t… not here…”

“I know,” Viktor agrees, cupping the side of Yuuri’s face with his palm. He runs his thumb over Yuuri’s cheekbone and Yuuri cranes his neck, chasing after his touch. “I just want to be close to you.” 

“So do I,” Yuuri says before reuniting their lips, and it’s like he had been holding his breath every moment they were apart. Viktor’s kiss is like air to starving lungs, Yuuri breathes him so deeply.

With both of their robes and pants and parkas shoved in a pile at the foot of their tent, they fall together atop the furs that make up their bed, a mostly-naked tangle of limbs and lips. Yuuri wants Viktor, he wants him in every way, but for tonight this is enough. The glide of Viktor’s arms around Yuuri’s torso, the press of their chests against one another, the slow drag of Viktor’s hips against his—there’s something spectacular in every shifting, wandering touch. There is a whole language, Yuuri thinks, just in the way Viktor’s tongue moves against his. He couldn’t translate it to words if he tried.

Yuuri wants to run his fingers through Viktor’s hair, but his bangs are still tied back into braids. Smoothing his fingers over the strands to unweave the plaiting is a slightly tedious endeavor but well worth it, in the end, when Yuuri starts his fingers at Viktor’s forehead and runs them all the way down his scalp to the base of his neck. The hair passes like warm silk between Yuuri’s fingers and Viktor goes boneless in his arms.

They kiss each other until they can’t kiss anymore, their lips numb and bodies heavy. Viktor’s hair forms a halo of silver around his head when he lies back on the furs beneath them, his eyes half-lidded but his reddened mouth curved upward in a punch-drunk smile. He reaches out to Yuuri and pulls him forward, pulls him _down,_ until Yuuri’s head rests atop his chest on the patch of naked skin just above his heart. _Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump._

Now that they are lying still, their bodies pressed close and bare and practically on top of one another, Yuuri realizes he can feel Viktor’s chi. The rivers of energy radiate all over his body but come together just above his navel, where they swirl as one before flowing back out to the rest of his body. Too tired and deliriously happy to stop himself, Yuuri reaches out with his inner-fire and submerges himself in the waters of Viktor’s chi, letting the current roll over him and lull him closer and closer to sleep. Viktor hums his delight. 

“No matter what happens,” Yuuri whispers, his breath warming Viktor’s skin, “please stay with me.” 

There’s a low rumble in Viktor’s chest, just below Yuuri’s ear. His heartbeat picks up and the waters of his chi swirl around Yuuri in a quiet, wordless welcome.

“Always, my Yuuri. Always.” 

(In roughly twenty-four hours, Yuuri will look back on this moment, on this _promise,_ and feel his heart shatter.  

But for now, he holds Viktor close and savors the moments before sleep.) 

 

❄

 

The sunlit hours of the following day, though spent scavenging for firewood and chopping up logs, are nearly as blissful as their night in each other’s arms. They fall easily into a routine and collect twice as much as the day before, working around one another like they dance their joint routine.

“You’re getting good at this,” Viktor observes.

Yuuri doesn’t look up from his target. “Yeah?” he says, before swinging the axe above his head and down with a _crack_ to split the wood. He hears all the air leave Viktor’s lungs at once. 

“Amazing!” 

“It’s not that amazing.”

“It took me months to get good at that,” Viktor admits. He can’t seem to keep his eyes on Yuuri’s, his gaze wandering down like he doesn’t notice how entirely _obvious_ he is being. That, or he doesn’t care. 

(Yuuri doesn’t care, either. In fact, he rather likes staring at Viktor as well, especially when his torso ripples as he swings the axe over his head, and Yuuri figures he can take this as permission to stare at him in return.) 

“It’s not that hard,” Yuuri replies. “It’s just wood.”

The euphemism was entirely intentional, and the gleam in Viktor’s eyes tells Yuuri that he noticed. He licks his lips—they look horribly chapped from the cold. Yuuri is going to have to do something about that. 

Viktor chuckles. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he says, as if it’s not the other way around. He bends over to pick up the split logs, teasingly slow; bulky parkas aren’t supposed to flatter _anyone’s_ figure but here is Viktor, defying the odds yet again.

Yuuri begs time to move faster, to speed by until night falls and then to slow to a stop entirely so he can wrap himself up in Viktor’s arms and stay there forever. Or—not forever, actually, because the only thing he wants more than the warm privacy of their tent is to be back in Viktor’s home, safe and comfortable, and then _maybe—_

Yuuri needs to stop being greedy. He is here, now, with Viktor all to himself. He shouldn’t wish a moment of this away.

Beneath layer after layer of clothing, Yuuri’s skin buzzes. Despite working his body to exhaustion, he can still feel the tingling of unused energy in the tips of his fingers and toes. Perhaps it’s the aftershocks of Viktor’s kiss and Viktor’s touch, perhaps the desire for more, but Yuuri also hasn’t firebended or danced in days. It’s not painful, not even that annoying, but nonetheless it’s there at the edges, making him itch for _something._ He could take his gloves off right now and create a fire in his palms to warm them both with no one around for miles to see it, but this still feels too grave a risk. They may be surrounded by stretches of snow with the ocean at their backs, but this is not their cliff-side safe haven. Yuuri feels different here. More exposed. 

He had gone over a decade without creating more than a tiny flame. Surely he can manage for only a few days?

When afternoon bleeds into evening, they head back to camp with their spoils and spend an unnecessary amount of time brushing the frost from the fur of their two polar bear dogs. Viktor feeds them from his palm and cooes to them like he does to Makkachin, and the buzzing under Yuuri’s skin grows stronger. 

An hour later, Yuuri and Viktor set about building the fire. Usually Ivan would do this, but the hunting party has not yet returned. Viktor manages to convince Yuuri to light the fire with his bending (though really, since it’s Viktor, all he has to do is ask, and maybe bat those silver eyelashes once or twice). Yuuri lights a small pilot flame to get the fire started, and lets nature take care of the rest.

An hour after that, they eat their meager dinner alone. An hour after _that_ , Viktor begins to pace.

He paces and paces until the sun begins to set. 

“What do we…?” 

“I don’t know,” Viktor admits. He keeps shooting glances at the ice shelter that houses the two polar bear dogs. Yuuri wrings his hands in his lap.

“You can’t just—”

“I know.”

Yuuri doesn’t know what Viktor thinks he knows. He’s not even sure what he was going to say. Can’t what? Can’t just bound off in a one-man search party with the sun about to set? Can’t just sit here and twiddle their thumbs and hope everything will turn out okay?

Some of the longest hours of Yuuri’s life pass by in complete silence, the tension radiating off of Viktor’s shoulders in waves. Yuuri wishes he could help. And maybe he could—maybe his fire could calm the white-water currents of Viktor’s chi, but Yuuri doesn’t have the courage to offer.

Finally, with the sun barely a yolk-yellow sliver on the horizon, they spot a tiny blob of navy-blue moving against the endless expanse of white. Just one figure, a man atop a polar bear dog, riding fast. Riding _hard._ Viktor’s breath catches.

When the warrior—Igor, Yuuri thinks—arrives to the camp, his face is flushed red from the wind and his jaw square and set.

“Maxim,” Igor pants, his chest heaving beneath his parka. “Lost sight... of him, somehow… Hours ago… can’t find… Doesn’t have any… supplies…”

Igor’s desperate announcement is like a handful of snow stuck down the back of Yuuri’s coat, melting into ice water and trickling down his spine. Viktor tears off toward the polar bear dogs without stopping to hear anything more, and Yuuri runs close on his tail.

“I’m coming, too." 

Viktor hardly looks at him as he swings a saddle over a polar bear dog’s back. “You’re not.”

“You need a bigger search team. I’m not staying here all alone while everyone else does their part.”

Viktor hoists himself onto one of the dogs, swinging his legs over its back. “Have you ever even—”

“I’ve ridden an ostrich horse. This can’t be much different.”

(The occasion in question was the Royal Circus when Yuuri was six, and the animal barely moved faster than a trot. Yuuri omits both of these details.) 

Viktor pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yuuri…”

The ice-water feeling at the back of Yuuri’s neck is gone, replaced with a strange, prickling heat under his collar. His heartbeat pounds against his eardrums. “Stop babying me,” he snaps. “I’m perfectly capable, and you know as well as I do that he’ll be dead by morning if we don’t find him.”

Yuuri knows he is right, and by the torn expression on Viktor’s face, the other man has realized it too. Maxim is the only one of the warriors who cannot bend. If it were Viktor or any of the others lost and alone on this icy wasteland, they would simply create an ice shelter to protect themselves from the elements. But as it is, the temperature is plummeting and the wind is picking up and Maxim has nothing to protect himself but a coat.

The Viktor in front of Yuuri is not the soft, pliable man that melted into Yuuri’s embrace last night, nor the man with the bright smile and bubbly laugh that scolded Yuuri on the proper way to stack firewood just earlier this afternoon. This is Viktor the leader, Viktor on a mission, Viktor with a man’s life hanging in the balance.

“...Alright,” he agrees, his brow scrunched up as if it physically pains him to agree. Yuuri doesn’t have the time or mental space to process Viktor’s disapproval—he simply nods and mounts the polar bear dog, much less gracefully than Viktor but successful all the same. 

It takes an hour of hard riding to reach the others, every minute frigid on Yuuri’s lips and eyes and tip of his nose but stifling hot under his parka from the exertion. By the time the other warriors come into view, the sun has set and the terrain feels subtly different from anything he’d experienced yet at the north pole, though he can’t quite put his finger on why. The expanse of snow surrounding them is just as flat and white as always. 

“We’re splitting up in a v-formation,” Ivan directs. “I’m taking point. Viktor, Yuuri, Igor on my left flank and Sasha, Ilia, Dmitri my right. Spread out as far as you can but keep someone visible on either side at all times. We’re heading west along the water. Viktor, you’ll be closest, so—” 

“Be careful, yes, I know.”

Ivan nods. “Alright. Fall into position. Keep an eye out for footprints, yell if you find anything.” Without another word, three of the men take off to the right, moving fast enough to cover ground but still slow enough to scan the snow for signs of the missing warrior. Viktor urges Yuuri to the left with Igor trailing behind them. Only when Ivan is barely visible in the distance does Igor stop, leaving Yuuri and Viktor to continue on.

“Yuuri…” Viktor begins, and Yuuri jerks his head to look at Viktor in surprise. He didn’t anticipate Viktor breaking his focused silence until they found the missing warrior, and he certainly didn’t expect the hint of vulnerability that now creeps at the corners of Viktor’s voice. Yuuri yearns to reach out and take Viktor’s hand, but there’s too much distance between them. 

“I’ll be fine,” Yuuri promises, meaning every word. “I won’t even be leaving your sight.”

“I know,” Viktor says. With his head facing forward, his eyes are unreadable.

“We’ll find him.”

“Yes.” On the horizon, the ocean appears as a jagged sliver of darkness; behind them, Igor’s small outline is just visible in the distance. “You stop here. Start heading east when Igor does. I won’t be too far,” Viktor promises, waving his hand in the air. “Yell if you need anything.”

“Okay.” 

“I mean it.” 

“I will.”

Yuuri cannot tear his eyes from Viktor as he rides on toward the ocean, his moonlit silhouette shrinking smaller and smaller until he stops, just as barely-visible to Yuuri’s left as Igor is to his right. When Yuuri finally tears his gaze away from Viktor he sees that Igor has already started to move.

“Shit,” he hisses, and nudges the polar bear dog with his knee to start moving forward.

The race here at a breakneck pace had left Yuuri burning up beneath his parka, but now, with  his body temperature falling back to normal with every passing second, he finds himself longing for the heat. The arctic winds whistle through the air and pound against the fur hood that covers his ears. It’s all he can do to keep his eyes open as they water desperately against the dry wind. At what temperature does saltwater freeze? He can’t remember. If Viktor were here, Yuuri would ask, but Viktor is just a lumbering shape in the distance.

After living in a small home in a city crowded with people, the surrounding expanse of emptiness feels foreign, and yet horribly familiar at the same time—familiar just like that burn in his throat from the frigid air, as dry as if he were dying of thirst.

He buries his gloved fingers in the fur at his polar bear dog’s neck and it helps.

They are lucky that the moon is full, but it still takes all of Yuuri’s concentration to scan the snow around him for footprints. He sweeps the area in front of him from right to left and back again with watering but focused eyes, and it takes all of his self-control not to compulsively check for Viktor’s silhouette in the distance any more than he checks for Igor’s. Finding Maxim is the priority, far more important than Yuuri’s petty, irrational fears. Hypothermia would set in soon, surely, but Yuuri knows from very personal experience that as long as Maxim is _found,_ Viktor will be able to bring life and warmth back to his body. 

And to think they have the audacity to ridicule Viktor for it. Guest in this city or not, Yuuri will have to have a word with any one of these warriors who dares to talk down to Viktor for following his passion once he has used it to save Maxim’s life.

The adrenaline that had flowed freely through Yuuri’s veins on the race to meet up with the hunting party has largely abandoned him now. Though the situation remains as dire as ever, a humming, anxious boredom has settled like a blanket over his mind. There’s nothing to break up the snow-scanning boredom except calling Maxim’s name into the distance every now and again; he doubts it does much good, with his voice hoarse from the cold and his yelling drowned out by the wind, but he hears the others calling and he follows their lead. 

Fortunately, the riding is much less tiresome than before. It takes Yuuri a while—he’s not sure how long, with no way to measure time—to realize this is not just because of the polar bear dog’s slower pace. Where they used to have to navigate terrain made of layers and layers of packed snow, they now stroll over a much firmer surface—ice, Yuuri realizes, covered in a mere dusting of powder. Turtle seals must favor this type of habitat and he is momentarily grateful; the ice is easier on the animal’s joints and far better on Yuuri’s back. 

Bathed in moonlight and surrounded by white, the search is almost peaceful. Yuuri face freezes and the wind howls but he is present in every bit of this moment, keenly aware in every breath and movement that he is alive and has a job to do.

Two things happen in very close succession.

First, he hears yelling to his right, carried to him on the wind and warped beyond recognition. Still, it is different from their calls of _Maxim!_ that have been rippling out over the ice for what feels like an hour—there’s an edge to these calls, something urgent, something triumphant. His polar bear dog heard it, too, and is whining to break formation and head back to the center of their group. To his right, he sees Igor do exactly that.

Just as he is about to crack the reins, he glances back to Viktor and sees—

Nothing.

No spot of navy-blue in the distance. No silhouette. Just a thin slice of darkness, exactly the same shade as the inky ocean on the horizon, cutting across the ice where Viktor should be.

And then he hears the howling.

He doesn’t stop to think. He _can’t_ , not with terror holding his pounding heart in a vice grip and freezing his blood in his veins. Yuuri cracks the reins and they tear off toward the ocean. 

“ _VIKTOR!”_ he screams, then whips his head around. “Help, Viktor! He—! Help! _Help!”_ The same wind that brought the others’ cries of triumph to his ears sweep his desperate pleas away, but his polar bear dog has heard its sibling’s distress and howls high and loud to match, and then there’s howling behind him in the distance, letting him know their cry for help has been heard.

Yuuri flattens himself forward on the polar bear dog’s back, driving the animal as fast as it can possibly go. The wind tears his hood off of his head and whips against Yuuri’s neck and ears but he does not stop to pull it back up, does not let his eyes stray for one second from the spot where Viktor disappeared.

The reality of the situation becomes horrifyingly clear as the seconds race toward a minute and the streak of black on the ground looms closer. Yuuri knew immediately what it was, but hadn’t wanted to believe, hadn’t wanted to imagine what this would mean if it were the truth: that the ice beneath Viktor had cracked and crumbled without warning and let the depths of the ocean swallow him whole.

Viktor’s polar bear dog is bobbing in the water surrounded by pieces of broken ice, sinking its claws into the edge to try and pull itself out. Realizing how thin the ground beneath them truly is, Yuuri launches himself off of his own polar bear dog and scrambles forward on foot until he arrives at the spot where last Viktor stood, where his polar bear dog now lies next to a gaping hole in the ice, shivering and whining.

Viktor is a waterbender. He knows his element, loves his element, respects the water and ice and snow like they are a part of his own body and controls them as easily as his own limbs. If Viktor were able to, he would have surfaced by now. He would have shot back up through the hole that cracked open beneath him within seconds if it were still in his power to do so.

Yuuri is stripping off his parka and boots before he has a chance to think. The adrenaline has returned, numbing his skin to the frigid wind as he strips off his robe, leaving nothing but skin-tight pants to protect his body from the cold. He is intimately aware of how quickly clothing becomes like a waterlogged deadweight to swimming limbs, and if he’s going to have any chance at succeeding…

Somewhere in his mind, he knows this is crazy, but it would be crazier—absolutely, fundamentally unthinkable—to sit here and let Viktor die a horrible, painful death when he could have done something, _anything,_ to try to save him.

Yuuri sits at the edge of the hole and takes a deep breath, reaching for any energy that the sun, long since set, can offer him. Heat ripples through his body hotter than ever before, radiating out from his core, up to his chest, down his limbs.

He dangles his legs off the edge, submerging them up to the shins, and _immediately_ the pain stabs all the way down to the marrow of his bones. His entire body recoils and he gasps, the breath rattling in his chest. The only thing that stops him from pulling out is the thought of Viktor, unconscious or not, enduring so much worse.

Yuuri knows how it feels to drown. He remembers the water pouring into the cargo hold, every drop displacing precious air as he rammed his shoulder against the locked trapdoor that was his only escape. He remembers the wave that saved him and condemned him all at once, remembers the moment of impact that shattered the hull and busted him free but also dragged him down, over, around, tumbling him upside down and sucking every molecule of air from his lungs in one fell swoop. He remembers flailing desperately, searching for the surface but not knowing which way was up, his clothes and drawstring backpack weighing down every movement like chains dragging him to the depths.

He remembers the moment his lungs, screaming in agony, decided to act on their own accord and breathe in the ocean.

He remembers pain like nothing he’d ever known.

But Yuuri was lucky, in the end. His desperate limbs had caught onto a piece of the busted hull and it pulled him to the surface. He’d torn his nails and skin to shreds clinging to that piece of wood until the storm passed. And though the water had been chilly, it was not the arctic sea of the north pole that causes shards of agony after only a few seconds’ exposure. 

Still, Yuuri will gladly go through all of this again if it means even the slimmest chance at saving Viktor. The alternative doesn’t even bare thinking about.

Blood rushes in his ears and he takes a deep breath, bracing himself—

_“Yuuri!”_  

There are hands on his arms, pulling him back. Out of the water, away from the hole, away from Viktor. He struggles.

“What the fuck, are you fucking _insane?!”_

“Viktor,” Yuuri tries to say, but it comes out as a strangled gasp. “He’s— I have to— Viktor is—!”

“We know, _fuck,_ calm down.”

It’s Ivan, Yuuri realizes. Ivan is holding him back. Yuuri’s whole body trembles violently in his arms, from shock or terror or cold or all of the above, he doesn’t know. When he looks up, he finds two of the warriors—Igor and Dmitri, he thinks—stripping down just as Yuuri had and then, without a moment’s hesitation, diving head-first through the hole and into the water.

_“Oh,”_ Yuuri whispers, sagging in relief against Ivan’s hold. The panic begins to clear from his mind, letting reason trickle in. 

Igor and Dmitri are waterbenders. They can save him. They _will_ save him.

“Put some clothes on, you’re freezing,” someone urges, holding his robe and parka in front of his face. It’s Maxim, Yuuri realizes, his lips a little blue but otherwise no worse for wear. Yuuri can’t find it in himself to feel properly relieved about that.

Yuuri pulls back on his clothing but the furs doesn’t chase away the cold. He tries to reach into himself and stoke his inner-fire, but he can’t focus on anything besides counting every breath he takes that Viktor can’t.

A warrior named Ilia tends to Viktor’s polar bear dog, still lying by the edge but looking largely recovered. Another, Sasha, takes off his own parka and spreads it across the ice with the inside facing up. He kneels next to it and waits.

Every second that creeps by is agony, measured in the bone-cracking pressure that builds up on the inside of his ribcage. Viktor had been in the water for at least a minute before Yuuri reached this spot, another minute more before the others arrived, and Igor and Dmitri have been underwater for far too long to still be holding their breath.

“Are they…?” Yuuri barely manages to ask.

“They have bubbles of water trapping air around their heads,” Ilia explains. “A useful diving technique. Doubles the amount of time they can stay under.”

“But Viktor…” 

Behind Yuuri, Ivan speaks. “He could still live. Maybe another minute at the most, though.”

Yuuri’s knees wobble. His ribs crack with every moment Viktor stays under. _A minute._ Sixty seconds. Yuuri can’t help it: the countdown starts in his head. 

...Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven…

He wants to stop hearing Viktor’s life ticking away in his head. He wants this to stop. He wants to be back in their tent, holding Viktor tight to his chest, his bare skin warm against Yuuri’s as they breathe.

...Forty, thirty-nine, thirty-eight...

Even being tossed and turned by an ocean storm, dragged into the depths by a swirling current, not able to breathe or tell which way was up or down—

(...twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two...)

—Even then, Yuuri felt less helpless than he does in this moment, waiting with his bones and heart breaking to find out whether he’ll have to live the rest of his life without the man he loves.

...Eighteen, seventeen, sixt—

With no warning, three bodies and a spurt of ice-cold water rocket out of the jagged hole in the ice. The glint of moonlight off of silver hair hits Yuuri’s eyes and _there it is, oh,_ there he is. Yuuri lurches forward, a desperate, wracking gasp tearing itself from his chest, and he needs to, he _needs to—_  

“Hey, relax,” says a voice near his ear, and there are hands on his arms again, holding Yuuri back. Yuuri struggles, and the hands begin to bruise.

“Seriously, stop!” Ivan snaps. “Let them do their job. Do you _want_ him to live?”

“It’s okay, Yuuri,” says a voice to Yuuri’s right, gentler than Ivan’s. Maxim, Yuuri registers in some distant part of his brain. “They know what they’re doing.”

And they do, it seems. Yuuri strains forward in Ivan’s grasp, looking around Ilia and Sasha as they strip the waterlogged clothes from Viktor’s body. Only once they are finished, the robes and pants discarded and frozen-solid in the snow, do they lay him down flat on the bed of Sasha’s parka and give Yuuri an unobstructed view of a man he’d thought, for a horrifying six minutes, he would never see again. The terror that abated when Igor and Dmitri burst onto the surface with Viktor in their arms resurges immediately with a vengeance.

Viktor looks like a corpse.

There’s little other comparison to be made, seeing his body spread naked and prone on the ground, every bit of rosy pink gone from his skin. His eyes are closed, his lips blue, his jaw slack. There’s a gash near his hairline that does not bleed. His chest is completely, painfully still. 

He looks so much smaller than Yuuri remembers.

Yuuri watches as Ilia bends every drop of water off of Viktor’s hair and skin, just like Yuuri had seen Viktor do so many times after a bath. Yuuri chokes on something invisible as Sasha forces Viktor’s mouth open and Ilia places his hand over his lips, frowning in concentration before drawing out a seemingly endless stream of water from Viktor’s lungs. Even with all of the water gone, Viktor doesn’t move. 

“Can’t find a pulse,” Sasha mutters, hands fluttering from Viktor’s wrist to his neck. Yuuri wants to throw up. He tastes bile on the back of his tongue as Ilia puts his ear to Viktor’s mouth.

“Not breathing, either.” 

Just last night, Yuuri had spent hours with his mouth on Viktor’s, feeling Viktor’s breath on his lips, on his tongue, in his lungs. It’s impossible to reconcile with the blue, unmoving lips of the man before him.

Ilia bends over and breathes into Viktor, pressing air into his lungs; Dmitri presses his palms together on Viktor’s chest and heaves downward, trying to force his heart to pump. The two of them take turns working on Viktor’s body, forcing it violently to do what the water had forbidden him from doing on his own. As long as they keep doing this, there’s a _chance…_

Yuuri’s nails dig into his palms so hard he thinks they might bleed. He closes his eyes and offers a desperate prayer to Agni, to the Ocean Spirit, the Moon Spirit, to anyone that will listen. It doesn’t feel like enough.

And it isn’t.

It isn’t.

Less than a week ago, Viktor had offered his arm to Yuuri with a brilliant smile on his face and said, _What’s the worst that could happen?_

Mutilation. Maiming. Combustion from the inside out. A horrible, fiery burn stretched all over his skin just like that night atop the cliffs.

Nothing bad had happened that night, but Yuuri hadn’t done anything but reach out and _touch._ That was it. Nothing special. Nothing healed.

But Viktor was right then, wasn’t he?

The worst that could happen has already _happened._ Even surrounded by six watertribe warriors, even knowing the consequences, Yuuri has nothing left to lose.

Yuuri pulls himself free from Ivan’s grip and stumbles toward Viktor like a man possessed. He sinks to the ground at Viktor’s side, barely registering the cries of protest from Ivan and the others. Ilia and Sasha shoot him warning looks as they continue their efforts to force life back to Viktor’s frozen body.

Yuuri takes a deep breath, channels all of his energy, and places his hands a top Viktor’s ice-cold stomach.

There’s a sharp movement in Yuuri’s peripheral vision. “Are you deaf?!” Yuuri looks up just in time to see Ivan and Igor, seemingly recovered from his dive in the frigid water, rushing forward to pull Yuuri away. “Get away from h—" 

Ivan never finishes his sentence. His angry words cut off with a hiss, a yellow flame reflecting in his wide, blue eyes.

The ball of fire burns bright in Yuuri’s palm, a clear warning.

“Stay back,” he orders, his tone leaving no room for negotiation.

“Holy _fuck,”_ Sasha whispers, jerking back from Viktor’s body. Yuuri had partly hoped that he would continue the chest compressions, but clearly that was wishful thinking. Ilia has backed away too, leaving Yuuri alone at Viktor’s side.

There’s a chorus of noises of shock and horror for a few precious moments before the warriors process what has happened. Then, all at once, they surge forward in attack.

Yuuri barely has time to think. He throws out a ring of fire, just far enough to force the warriors back but not aggressive enough to actually burn them.

“I said stay _back!”_

Ivan snarls. “You _filthy—”_

“I can save him!” Yuuri interrupts. “You can do whatever you want with me afterward but _please,_ at least let me…” He swallows, every ounce of bravado dissipating into thin air like his defensive flames. “At least let me try?”

“You’re a _firebender,”_ Dmitri spits, his face contorted like the word itself burnt his tongue. “A liar, a _spy,_ why the hell would we trust you?”

Yuuri forces himself to remain patient. Viktor’s chances of survival slip further away with every second he spends pleading with these men, but he is vastly outnumbered and he needs them to agree...

“Because he’ll die if you don’t.”

Ivan growls. “He’ll die either way." 

“Then let me try.” Yuuri’s voice cracks. _“Please.”_

For a horrible, quiet moment, everything hangs in the balance—then Ivan schools his face, holds up a hand to his warriors, and stands down. 

“You have five minutes.” 

Yuuri does not even allow himself a moment to process the relief—he shuts it out, shuts _everything_ out except for the man he loves lying spread and still before him. Yuuri channels all of his love, all of his energy, all of _himself_ that he wants so badly to give to Viktor and empties it like gasoline on his inner fire.

The flames roar, blazing through his veins and licking at the palms he places on Viktor’s freezing skin. Yuuri reaches out with his fire to that spot just above Viktor’s navel where his chi swirled like a whirlpool last night, and touches ice as hard and immobile as rock.

Yuuri moves his hands up to Viktor’s chest, following the frozen rivers that branch off his core and wrap completely still around broken ribs, motionless lungs, and a non-beating heart.

Viktor told Yuuri once that his inner-fire could never burn, that it was merely pleasantly warm. Tonight, Yuuri screws his eyes shut and gives every bit of energy he has to his flames, praying it will be enough. A gasp from the onlooking warriors makes Yuuri open his eyes, and only his desperation to save Viktor keeps him from drawing away in horror at what he sees.

His hands, pressed firmly against Viktor’s skin, are covered in flames. 

This is not normal fire, Yuuri knows—there are bits of every color of the rainbow shimmering on its edges, and it doesn’t burn the skin it leaves behind. Yuuri trails his hands over Viktor’s chest and instead of ghastly, bubbling flesh sees snow-pale skin with lovely hints of pink beneath. And when he closes his eyes again…

He feels Viktor’s frozen chi melt to water beneath his fingers.

Yuuri’s heart leaps into his throat; he hardly dares to breathe as he moves his healing fire to every part of Viktor’s body he can reach, over his shoulders and up his neck and down his arms and up his legs before finally returning to the center just above his stomach, melting the reserves of energy still left frozen by the arctic waters. With all of his chi melted, the rivers slowly begin to flow, the whirlpool to swirl, and Viktor’s body comes alive again.

There is only one last thing to do. Following instincts he didn’t know he had, Yuuri traces the river of chi that branches up to Viktor’s heart and, with fiery fingers blazing with all of the energy he an muster, coaxes the water to wrap around the motionless organ.

“Please, Vitya, _please,”_ he begs, tears searing his eyes. He opens them just in time to see the healing flames burn white. 

Then, in Yuuri’s hands of fire, Viktor’s heart sputters once, twice, and begins to beat again. Moments later, his lungs convulse and he takes a shaky breath.

Yuuri can’t help it—he lets out a sob, tears flowing freely from eyes blown wide open with disbelief as they rake over every inch of Viktor’s body, taking in the beautiful pink pallor of his skin, the red of his lips, the steady movement of his chest as he breathes on his own.

Alive. He’s unconscious but alive, alive, _alive._  

It feels wrong to kiss Viktor on the lips when he can’t kiss Yuuri back, so Yuuri brings his lips to his cheek instead, cradling Viktor’s head between his hands and pressing their foreheads together in what feels like the most intimate touch in the world.

Viktor’s skin is warm against Yuuri’s, his breath hot on Yuuri’s lips, and Yuuri revels in this precious moment. His tears splash on Viktor’s cheeks.

The sound of movement comes from behind him, and Yuuri knows their time is limited.

“I love you,” he whispers, the words for Viktor and Viktor only. It is a shame that he never got to say the words when Viktor could hear. He might never get the chance to, now.

The warmth from Viktor’s body lingers on Yuuri’s forehead, cheeks, lips, and hands long after the warriors have dragged him away. Yuuri clings to the the feeling of Viktor’s soft skin against his even as they pull his arms behind his back, binding them nearly up to the elbow so tightly it makes his shoulders ache. It was worth it, just to be able to feel Viktor’s touch one last time.

The ride back to camp, slumped behind Ivan on a saddle, is less than comfortable. Viktor, at least, seems to be well taken care of, leaning back against Maxim’s chest. Maxim has always  been kind, at least, and he treats the unconscious man with care.

The warriors pack up camp quickly, piling their supplies and spoils onto the flatbeds of the four sleighs. They bind Yuuri’s ankles as well, using rope usually tied to the ends of spears for turtle seal-hunting, before depositing him on a sleigh next to a pile of seal carcasses. Viktor, they wrap in furs and place next to the tents.

“Careful!” Yuuri cries when they lay Viktor on the flatbed. “His… his ribs are broken.”

Ivan scowls. “Don’t make me gag you, ash-maker.”

The journey back to the city is infinitely longer than Yuuri remembers. The sleigh carrying Viktor rides next to Yuuri’s for most of the journey, but he almost wishes it would speed up. It would have been easier to stare at the unending, unchanging expanse of glacial white than at Viktor’s limp profile bathed in moonlight, reminding him in every moment that, though Viktor is alive, Yuuri is going to lose him anyhow. Those hours he spends staring at Viktor’s unconscious form are a far worse form of torture than the ropes cutting off the circulation in his arms and making his shoulders scream. 

He does not know what waits for him when they return to the city. He does not know what they will do, how a tribe once decimated by war will treat the enemy living among them. But where fear would have once seized his body at the discovery of his bending, now he just feels numb. He does not fight, does not run, does not panic.

The city appears in the distance and Yuuri thinks, _for Viktor_. All of this was for Viktor—to save the man who saved him. To save the man he loves.

No matter how painful, Yuuri can live with the consequences.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SPOILER:** This chapter contains graphic descriptions of the near-drowning of a main character.
> 
> So, anyway, I’m sorry? Kind of? Not really? I realize this is a terrible place to leave you but it was this or a 25k chapter. I’ll try to post the next chapter as soon as possible. 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought, if you’re so inclined <3 
> 
> find me on tumblr at stammiviktor!


	4. Chapter 4

When Yuuri was sixteen, he finally worked up the courage to ask the question that had been on the tip of his tongue since he first learned to hide himself away.

“What would he do?” he whispered into his mother’s shoulder, her robes still damp with tears. She had held him like a child in her arms as he cried, limp, not grasping her back. Physical comfort has always been hard for him to accept, even from someone he knows loves him deeply, but that night he didn’t have the will to pull away—not after she found him spiralling into directionless, motionless panic, terrified yet refusing to light a single flame to calm his nerves and chase away the darkness.

He needed to know, in that moment more than ever: _What would he do to me if he discovered the truth?_

Her fingers paused where they had been running through his hair. “I don’t know,” she sighed.

Yuuri’s hands had clenched into fists at his sides. “I’m not a child. You don’t have to protect me.”

“I am _always_ going to protect you, Yuuri.”

In the end, his mother had given him no answer, but Yuuri was a smart boy with enough guesses to fill the whirlpool of anxiety churning at the base of his chest. His grandfather wanted his daughter to produce a firebending heir to continue his bloodline and his reign of terror. His mother, at least, could be sharp when she needed to be. Unlike Yuuri, she’d grown up with no one to protect her and had learned to wear the mask. But, firebender or not, Yuuri was soft and nervous and wouldn’t know how to masquerade as ruthless if he tried.

Still, with enough leverage, ruthlessness could be taught. Instilled. Carved into him with methods his mind quite creatively conjured up to keep him from sleeping at night.

He’d spent so many years terrified, but now, standing before the water tribe council awaiting judgement as their enemy, he feels only numb exhaustion. His inner-fire flickers weakly; depleted from its miracle only hours earlier, it hadn’t been able to keep him warm on the ride back to the city. Yuuri can hardly feel his limbs, but that may also be due to the coarse rope binding his arms behind him from wrists to elbows, the sleeves of his parka thankfully protecting his skin but unable to mitigate the fierce ache in his shoulders and neck that makes it hard to even breathe. And there’s also the throbbing numbness of his knees on rock-hard ice to contend with.

“Yuuri Li,” the chief’s voice booms out across the square, “You have been brought before the council on charges of espionage and willful deception of both this council and our entire civilisation. Before we hear the testimony of our witnesses, we ask: do you deny these accusations?”

Yuuri has been chased his entire life by an elusive anxiousness that so often spirals into panic. But now, even at the mercy of people who despise him, the fear cowering in the back of his mind does not surge forward to seize his body. Each of the chief’s words are a blow, but they do not cut swiftly and sharply down to his chest as they might have years, _months,_ ago. Instead they are blunt instruments, battering his body but never once breaking skin.

Only hours ago, he had been forced to sit by for _six whole minutes_ as the man he loved drowned beneath his feet. Yuuri knows terror. He knows helplessness. And his entire future rides on this moment of judgement, but it doesn’t hold a candle to counting down the seconds until Viktor died.

Yuuri aches to hold him just one more time, to feel Viktor’s body and presence at his side giving him strength when he has nothing left to give and providing him shelter when he has nowhere else to go. There had been so much commotion as they arrived back in the city; Viktor’s unconscious body, Yuuri’s visual touchstone for the frigid ride back through the wilderness, had been whisked away almost immediately as someone had sliced through the rope binding Yuuri’s ankles and jerked him to his feet. Yuuri tried to call out, “His head, he needs…!” but no one seemed to hear him. He hadn’t had the chance to try to heal the cut that had been left by the blow that had knocked Viktor unconscious as he fell through the ice, and someone needed to tend to it, make sure it wasn’t severe… Yuuri hoped they were taking him to Lilia. Lilia would know what to do. She would take care of him, when Yuuri no longer could.

A couple of warriors that Yuuri did not recognize had pulled him along to the city’s central square, where the banquets usually take place. The square was completely empty but for a long, high table made of ice looking over the plaza from the north. The warriors pushed Yuuri to his knees in front of it, stepped back, and waited.

It was still very early in the morning and the council took time to assemble, but slowly, as word spread and the city awoke, a mass of whispered voices grew behind him like every citizen had come out to witness Yuuri’s judgement. His knees throbbed against the icy ground.

Eventually, the five council members had entered, taken their seats before Yuuri, and it had begun.

And now, the chief’s question bounces off of the ice-block buildings surrounding the central square and echoes in Yuuri’s ears: _Do you deny these accusations?_

Yuuri risks a glance behind him. Other than the two warriors posted just off to the side to keep Yuuri in line, he is alone at the foot of the council’s table. The rest of the citizens stand a good distance behind him and more people filter to the sides, forming a semi-circle around the place where Yuuri kneels. Alone, scrutinized, on an island of ice.

In the first row, just off to the right, he catches sight of a shock of straw-blonde hair. Yuri is far too young for the fear and confusion painted so clearly across his face, visible even from a distance. When Yuuri replies to the chief’s question, his answer is for Viktor’s brother instead; for the boy that lived just down the hall from him all this time, the boy that teased him and beat him in Pai Sho and got beaten in turn, the boy with a prickly outside but a fiercely loyal heart that Yuuri knows he’s betrayed.

Yuuri looks back up at the council, his jaw set.

“I am not a spy.”

Chief Mikhail raises an eyebrow. “I see. But you do not deny that you are a firebender? That you have lied about your identity since the tribe took you in?”

Yuuri swallows. “No, I do not.” He tries to make his voice sound strong. It doesn’t work.

A rumble of shock ripples out from the crowd around him, prickling the back of Yuuri’s neck as it  burns with strain from his bindings. The chief holds his hand up to quiet the onlookers.

It is Yakov that speaks next. “We will hear the testimony of the witnesses. Ivan Mikhailovich, as the leader of the expedition, you will speak first. Please come forward.”

Out of the corner of Yuuri’s left eye, he sees Ivan step forward from the crowd. Behind him are the rest of the warriors, clearly trying very hard not to meet Yuuri’s gaze.

“Ivan, please recount the events of last night.”

Ivan clears his throat. “A few hours before sunset, we lost sight of Maxim. Igor returned to the campsite to get Viktor and Yuuri—if that’s even his real name—to help find him. We spread out in v-formation with me on point and Viktor on the southernmost flank, and he must have hit a spot of thin ice because it cracked and he fell in. We believe he hit his head on the ice, because he didn’t…”

Yuuri looks away, fixing his gaze on the ground below him. Witnessing Viktor’s near-death experience was horrible enough, but rehashing it so soon, especially in Ivan’s calculated voice, sends shards of ice into his chest. He knows what Ivan is going to say. He tunes it out, until he hears his own name once again and his ears perk up involuntarily.

“...pushed away and ran forward. I tried to get him to leave Sasha and Ilia alone to let them save Viktor, and that’s when…” Ivan clears his throat. “That’s when he did it.”

Yakov prompts, “Did what?”

“Firebended. First just a flame in the palm of his hand, and then he yelled at us to stay away from him and… He attacked, he threw the fire at us, like a ring of flames flying out from his body to try to burn us.”

 _I wasn’t trying to hurt you,_ Yuuri wants to protest, _I wouldn’t have—_

“What happened next?”

“He— well, he… I don’t know. He wanted us to let him try to save Viktor, I guess, but I don’t know what he did. He put his hands on Viktor’s chest and lit them on fire but it was all… blue and green and purple, for a while. It didn’t burn him, I don’t know how. And then the fire got all white, and Viktor was breathing again.”

The crowd begins to mumble, a cacophony of frightened whispers that gets louder every second. Yuuri hopes Yuri understands what really happened, that he knows Yuuri never meant his brother any harm.

“Silence, please,” the chief demands. A hush falls over the crowd.

Yakov nods. “Ivan, please continue. What happened next?”

Ivan hesitates. “We, uh, took him into custody.”

There’s a beat before Yakov replies. “He didn’t firebend any more?”

“No. We tied him up quickly to make sure he couldn’t.”

If the situation weren’t so serious, it would have been amusing that they thought tying Yuuri’s hands behind his back with rope could keep him from firebending. Even more amusing that Ivan had found a way to portray Yuuri’s peaceful surrender as a potential struggle cut short.

“Do any of the other witnesses challenge this recounting of events?”

There’s a brief moment of silence before one of the warriors says, “No, we do not.”

“Very well. Ivan, is there anything else you would like to add?”

Ivan huffs. “Only that he clearly cannot be trusted. I was suspicious from the beginning, but now we know that he has lied to everyone to get what he wanted. Clearly he and Viktor were... close, but he even managed to fool _him._ I wouldn’t trust a word out of his mouth, if I were...”

A small commotion from the other side of the crowd makes Ivan trail off. Yuuri looks up from the ground and swivels his head back just in time to see—

“What is going on here?”

Yuuri sways backwards on his knees and nearly topples over, that deep and carefully-controlled voice striking him like a sudden gust of wind. The words sound scratchy and dangerously threatening, but other than that it’s the same voice he’s longed to hear for what feels like an eternity, the same voice that whispered _always, my Yuuri, always_ against the shell of his ear only a little over a day ago.

Viktor stands just off to Yuuri’s right, leaning on a walking stick with a healer’s robe tied haphazardly around his waist and the crowd parted around him.

And his eyes. Bright blue like the sea, blue like his chi, blue like _Viktor_ and Yuuri’s heart cries out in relief. It was one thing to feel Viktor’s heart beat in his unconscious body, but another thing entirely to see him up and walking and looking right at him.

In the seconds that Viktor first lays his eyes on Yuuri, his expression sparks from dangerous to absolutely furious. He bursts forward, breaking the line of the crowd and stalking toward the council’s table, toward _Yuuri_ , his discarded walking stick clattering to the ground.

“What do you think gives you the right to treat him like this?! After _everything_ , you still—!”

“Vitya,” Yakov gives a warning, echoed a moment later by the chief. The warriors guarding Yuuri move swiftly to intercept Viktor, catching him by the shoulders and preventing him from taking a step closer. He sways in their arms.

“Let me go to him,” Viktor growls.

The chief stands. “He is standing trial, Viktor. Do not interfere.”

“Only minutes ago Lilia tells me he saved my _life,_ and now I find you persecuting him for it?”

From across the plaza, Ivan sneers. “One decent act can’t change what he is.”

 _"What_ he— He is a _person,_ Ivan, no matter what element he wields!”

Ivan snorts. “You seem _awfully_ unconcerned that the guy you’ve been shacking up with is in league with the people who tried to wipe out your tribe, your _family_ —”

“Ivan Mikhailovich,” the chief’s interrupts, “that is quite enough.” Ivan snaps his jaw shut, properly cowed.

Yakov raises an eyebrow. “As for you, Viktor—”

“You cannot possibly expect me to sit by quietly while you make an innocent man out to be some sort of _monster.”_

“Vitya, it’s okay,” Yuuri says before he can stop himself. His voice is low, still hoarse from the glacial winds that swept through his lungs the entire trip home; he didn’t expect his words to garner much attention, but everyone seems to stop and look at him.

“It’s not okay,” Viktor tries to reply. He tries to yank himself away from the guards keeping him back, but they hold fast to his arms. He looks up at his waterbending teacher and begs, “Yakov, _please,_ you know this is wrong—”

“He will get a chance to explain himself.”

“At least untie him, for the love of—”

“Viktor Leonidovich. Please. Control yourself.”

That is the interesting thing about Viktor—he is always in control, even when seething with anger. His reply is acidic but carefully calculated. “You told me when the council agreed to let him stay that I would be responsible for him if he did anything wrong. This is me, taking respon—”

“Viktor, _no,"_ Yuuri interrupts.

Viktor jerks his head back to Yuuri, protective fury churning in the pools of his eyes. He seems so conflicted—unable to keep making a scene, but unable to imagine standing by while Yuuri kneels all alone before the council.

Yuuri cannot let Viktor continue to fight for him like this, not when Viktor doesn’t even know the whole story. Yuuri has lied to Viktor just as he lied to the rest of the tribe, and Viktor would not be standing up for him so publicly if he knew who Yuuri truly was. So far, Viktor hasn’t admitted to being complicit in Yuuri’s deception. If he stops talking now, perhaps he will get out of this unscathed.

So Yuuri looks him straight in the eye, nods, and says, “It’s okay,” with all of the reassurance he can muster, just loud enough that only Viktor and the guards could truly hear him.

Viktor stops struggling. He takes a few deep breaths and stands straight. The guards let him go and he takes a few steps back toward the crowd, never looking away from Yuuri and his concern never melting from his face. Eventually, it is Yuuri who must look away.

“Yuuri,” the chief begins, holding up a hand to silence the rumbling crowd. “I think it’s time you told us the truth.”

Yakov nods his agreement and adds, “If you are completely honest, perhaps the consequences will be… more lenient.”

Yuuri knows better than anyone that, no matter their intentions, this statement will prove false. He could tell them all another lie: that he was a firebender, yes, but from a mixed family from the colonies in the Earth Kingdom with no loyalty to the Fire Nation. Patently untrue, but they wouldn’t know. Perhaps they would even let him continue to live here, even if under a more watchful eye, and he could stay with Viktor, and…

And it would be just another lie.

Hiding and lying has chipped away at Yuuri’s soul and made him weary to his bones. The truth will come out eventually, whether today or a year from now, and it will shatter every bit of trust that he has built. He’s tired of pretending to be someone he’s not—and, since he met Viktor and Yuri, tired of lying to people he cares about.

When he finally lets the truth fall unfettered from his tongue, he doesn’t feel particularly brave. Still, he holds his head high.

“I am Prince Yuuri Katsuki of the Fire Nation, son of Princess Hiroko and second in line for the throne.”

The title feels foreign on his lips and in his voice. This may be his identity, but it is not _him._ The prince and heir has very little in common with the boy who loved to dance, loved his family, and spent his life in hiding. As silence falls over the crowd peppered with gasps of utter shock, the need to explain all of this bubbles at the base of his throat. He just doesn’t have the words, nor the energy to search for them when he knows it would be a futile effort.

“You are saying,” the chief begins in a voice so low and dangerous that it makes the hairs on the back of Yuuri’s neck stand on end, “that not only are you a firebender, you are the _grandson_ of the _Firelord?”_

The horror in the chief’s voice makes Yuuri want to take it back, to vomit, and to run away, not necessarily in that order. The only thing keeping Yuuri anchored to this spot, to the _truth,_ is the man standing just behind him to his right. He wants so badly to look, to address Viktor directly, but he is terrified of what he will see if he does. Shock? Disgust? Betrayal? Yuuri keeps his eyes fixed on one leg of the council’s table. _Is this the truth,_ they ask? After everything, after months of lies, is this finally the truth?

“Yes,” he breathes.

Mumbled curses ripple out from the crowd behind him. The chief pinches the bridge of his nose. Yakov’s balding head has turned blood-red. The other three council-members—Yuri’s grandfather and two whose names Yuuri still does not know—do not contain their distress any better.

When his hand comes away from his face, the chief just looks baffled. “You must know how much worse you just made this for yourself.”

Yuuri can’t stop himself anymore; he glances over his right shoulder just quick enough to find Viktor. Broad shoulders, silver hair, dazed eyes as if he’d been struck across the face. Yuuri looks long enough to see Viktor’s mouth open and close, then tears his gaze away.

He looks back at the council and says, “I do not want to lie anymore.”

The chief glares. “Do you understand what happened here, boy?” He gestures not just to the plaza, but to the entire surrounding city. “Do you understand that every man, woman, and child here today has lost someone they loved to your nation? This is not ancient history, this was not even ten years ago!”

Yuuri tries not to imagine a woman with moonlight hair draped down to her waist, a familiar smile on her lips and a soft hand on a young boy’s shoulder. There would be others, too, whose faces he can’t picture quite as vividly but who he knows would have been there: another woman with green eyes and a toddler in her arms, a man with both Viktor and Yuri’s sharp jawline standing behind them. He tries not to imagine what they must have looked like with their skin burned and bubbling from their bones. Tries not to imagine Viktor, barely fifteen, stumbling over the smoking remains of his home-turned-battlefield, too young to fight but desperate to help, desperate to _heal…_

Yuuri tries not to imagine, but it’s all too easy. He sways on his knees.

“You claim you are not a spy,” the chief continues, “yet you lied. Not only are you a firebender, but your family, your own _bloodline,_ is directly responsible for the near destruction of our civilization. Do you _understand_ what this means?”

“Yes.” Yuuri’s voice cracks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

“You didn’t _what,_ Katsuki?” The chief spits the name like a curse.

Yuuri swallows and fixes his eyes on the ground. “It was an accident.”

“What?”

“Ending up here. _Staying_ here, I didn’t mean…”

The chief snorts. “Yes, getting purposefully stranded at sea and relying on our warriors finding you before you died doesn’t seem like the most ingenious infiltration plan.”

Yuuri snaps his head up. “It wasn’t—”

“Yes, yes, you’re not a spy. We heard you the first time.” The chief cocks an eyebrow and leans forward over the table. “But then why on _earth_ did you stay?”

Yuuri wonders this sometimes, too. For selfish reasons, he’s sure. Because of Viktor. Because he had nowhere else to go. Because…

“It was better than the alternative.”

The chief doesn’t seem convinced. “Living undercover in an enemy nation is better than going home?”

Yuuri bristles. An unpleasant twinge ripples through his shoulders, pulled tight by the rope. “I can’t.”

“You can’t what?”

“Go home.”

The chief blinks. Yakov replies, “You’re a prince.”

“Yes.”

“Well then what— what were you, banished? _Why?”_

“No, I... I ran away.”

“You ran away.”

“Yes.”

“From _what?_ Your grandfather is the most powerful man in the world, what is there to run away from?”

Yuuri’s mouth feels like sand. His whole body aches. He closes his eyes, ignores the pain, imagines himself disappearing as silence reigns over the square.

Within the chief’s question lies his answer. Eventually, they seem to realize.

“Oh,” the chief sighs. Yuuri’s eyes blink slowly open, but he avoids the chief’s gaze. “I see. Is he looking for you?”

Yuuri replies honestly. “I don’t know.” He never knew what his mother planned to tell his grandfather about his disappearance. He never thought to ask.

There was a lot he should have asked her that night as she shuffled him from his room, through the streets of the Capital, to the docks, onto the boat... but he was too frightened to even open his mouth.

“When you were brought here, there was a note in your backpack. It wasn’t signed. Who was it from?”

Yuuri swallows. “My mother.”

“Crown Princess Hiroko? The Firelord’s heir?”

“Yes.”

“What did it mean?"

“There’s no hidden meaning,” he replies, voice sticking in his throat.

“It said that she loves you. That _they_ love you."

The chief’s words burn at the back of Yuuri’s mouth, in the cavern of his chest, in the space behind his eyes. He can’t speak past the fire crackling away at his ribcage, the flames holding his heart in a vice grip. His bound hands clench into fists behind him, nails digging into the skin of his palms.

“They love you,” the chief says. “So then why did you run away?”

Something in Yuuri’s chest pops, sparks, _breaks._

“It wasn’t my choice!” The burning behind his eyes leaks out as hot tears, flooding his vision and flowing down his face. With his hands bound, he is not even allowed the dignity of wiping them away. “I didn’t want to leave my home! I didn’t want to end up here, I didn’t want to hide and _lie_ while my family thinks— thinks that I’m _dead—”_

“Katsuki…”

“—but there’s nothing I can do about it—”

“Calm down—”

“—I just—”

_“Katsuki—”_

“I’m a firebender!” he cries. The square falls silent but for Yuuri’s rapid breathing. His bound hands spark with heat, but the flames never materialize. His tears cool against his cheeks. “I am a firebender,” he continues, “but I am done hiding! You know, _he_ knows, and… and I’m done.” His chest heaves and he whispers, “I’m done.”

The chief nods slowly. “He, being the Firelord?”

“Yes,” Yuuri utters.

“He didn’t know before?”

Yuuri swallows, forcing his body back under control. “Not until that night.”

“The night you left?”

Yuuri nods. The chief looks like he’s about to ask something else, when Yakov’s voice booms out across the square.

“You hid your bending?”

“Yes.”

“For… your entire life?"

The bewildered pity in Yakov’s voice is suffocating, making Yuuri flounder for a response. In the end, his silence speaks volumes.

“I didn’t know that was possible,” Yakov admits.

The chief frowns. “Why not?”

Yakov snorts, but there’s no humor in it. “Asking a bender not to bend is like asking him not to breathe.”

The chief frowns, turning back to Yuuri. “I don’t understand. Why would you do that?”

This is the one thing Yuuri knows without a doubt—the one thing in this whole situation he truly understands, even if he’s never had to put it into words before. A new wave of tears threatens to flood his eyes, but Yuuri blinks them back with a vengeance. He swallows past the lump in his throat and tries to sound as strong as possible when he replies:

“I didn’t want to be like him.”

As if his words have sucked all of the oxygen from the air, the entire plaza falls silent. Yuuri wants to look back at Viktor, wants it _desperately,_ just a quick glimpse, but he knows he needs to leave Viktor to process this on his own. Viktor is too kind a man. If he sees the tear tracks on Yuuri’s face, he’ll force himself to forgive even if Yuuri doesn’t deserve it, and the last thing Yuuri wants is to pressure Viktor into giving Yuuri any more than the nothing he deserves.

Eventually, from the table of elders, Nikolai speaks.

“It doesn’t seem like you are, boy. Anything like him, I mean.” Yuuri jerks his head up in surprise, but Nikolai merely shrugs and looks out to the crowd. “You all know it’s true. We haven’t even asked how it was that he saved Vitya’s life. Who among us has ever even heard of fire being used to heal? Who had any idea such a thing was possible? Can you imagine the Firelord condoning fire healing, let alone _attempting_ it?”

The chief looks to Yuuri. “Is that what that was, then? Fire healing?”

“I think so.”

“You _think?”_

“Well, I’d never…”

The chief blinks. “That was your first time trying it?"

“Yes.”

“Does the Firelord know about this, too?"

A bitter laugh tears itself from Yuuri’s throat. _“I_ didn’t even know about it.”

“Well then who taught you?”

Yuuri would sooner be tortured within an inch of his life than admit any culpability on Viktor’s part. Luckily, the Water Tribe doesn’t seem to rely on such vicious measures, even for their enemy. “No one. It was like instinct.”

“Interesting,” Nikolai hums.

“Interesting, yes,” the chief agrees. “Nevertheless, he is still the prince of the enemy. The pressing question now is what to do with him.”

Yuuri’s breath hitches in his chest.

“He can’t stay here,” the councilman on the right speaks for the first time. “Our prison is made of ice, it won’t hold him.”

“Banishment, then?” the chief asks. “To where, the Fire Nation?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the councilman replies. “But I’m sure the Firelord would pay quite a large—”

“Out of the question,” Yakov snaps.

“He’s the boy’s family,” the councilman on the left points out. “It’s not like he’ll hurt him.”

Yuuri can’t help the shudder that wracks his frame. As if reading his mind, Yakov replies, “I wouldn’t be so sure.”

“The Earth Kingdom, then?” the chief persists.

Nikolai huffs. “It’s not like we can just send the boy off on a skiff. He’d be lucky to make land, and I’m sure he’s had quite enough of being stranded at sea.”

“The next trading expedition, then,” the chief replies. “We can drop him off at the nearest northern landfall.”

“Will he survive?”

“We’ll give him supplies. The Earth Kingdom was his original destination, was it not?”

“The next trading expedition isn’t for months. What do we do until then?”

“I’m sure we can come up with some way to secure him.”

“He doesn’t seem like he’ll give us too much trouble.”

“Yes, but again, our prisons are made of _ice…”_

The ringing in Yuuri’s head starts out soft, barely there at the edges, but grows louder with every word the council tosses over his head. Every _he_ or _him_ clearly means _Yuuri,_ means his future thrown about like he’s not even there to listen. At some point the clamor becomes louder than the voices themselves and drowns out everything but the rapid pounding of his heart. It doesn’t feel like his usual panic, he’s not shaking and struggling to breathe—instead he just zones out, his vision blurring, his body swaying on his knees.

A warm weight on his wrists jolts him back.

The council is still debating, turned in their chairs to discuss in loud voices amongst themselves, but the crowd has begun to bristle, murmurs sweeping out across the square. One by one, the councilmen fall silent, drifting off in the middle of their sentences as they turn to look at Yuuri.

Or rather, the man behind Yuuri. As the din fades, a voice as gentle as sunlight filters into Yuuri’s ear.

“...alright? I’m here, Yuuri, can you hear me? I’m here.”

Yuuri can hardly breathe past Viktor’s voice, past the feeling returning to his arms as careful fingers unknot and unwrap the rope from his wrists all the way up to his elbows. The second the last of his bonds is pulled away he falls backward, his back catching on Viktor’s chest, his whole body in Viktor’s arms. A shudder wracks his frame.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri begs, his head falling back onto Viktor’s shoulder. He smells like sweat and snow and Yuuri gasps, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have, I’m _so sorry…”_

Viktor makes a sound low in his throat, so close to Yuuri’s ear it’s almost deafening. “Shh, it’s okay. It’s okay. Can you stand?”

Yuuri’s knees throb in protest, but with Viktor’s help they both manage to stand, the rustling crowd falling silent around them. With blood returning to his legs and arms, prickling through his veins, Yuuri’s mind begins to clear. He holds tight to Viktor’s hand, but otherwise keeps himself standing on his own.

“Viktor…” the chief begins, but no one has moved to separate them, not even the warriors who had held him back from Yuuri before.

Yuuri looks up to finally meet Viktor’s gaze and finds him staring at the council’s table with sharpened resolve. When he speaks, his voice echoes throughout the square.

“If you banish Yuuri, then I leave with him.”

Yuuri freezes.

The chief shakes his head. “Come, Viktor, this isn’t necessary...”

“No? You are prosecuting Yuuri for his lies, why not prosecute me for mine?”

The blood in Yuuri’s veins has turned to ice. His fingers seize around Viktor’s almost instantly. _“Vitya,”_ he hisses. He thought they’d gotten past this, he thought Viktor was in the clear.

The chief’s eyes narrow. “What are you saying, Viktor?”

“I think you know.”

The look on Yakov’s face can only be described as panic. “Viktor Leonidovich—”

“I will admit, though, the whole ‘prince’ thing came as a bit of a surprise.” The amusement in Viktor’s eyes when he looks down at Yuuri does not at all match the mood of the situation.

“Vitya...” Yuuri breathes, knowing full well it is too late.

The chief’s mouth presses into a firm line. “You knew.”

“Well, you see—”

“You _knew?!”_

Viktor stands tall at Yuuri’s side. “He was dying.”

“He was a _firebender—”_

“So we’ve established.”

Yakov lurches to his feet, the chair screeching against the ground. “He could have been _dangerous!”_

“Ah, but he isn’t, as you’ve just admitted yourself.”

“This is not a joke, Viktor, it is _treason—”_

“It was the right thing to do and you know it.”

Yakov seethes. “The right thing to do would have been informing the council the second you discovered the truth.”

“So that you could do what? Exactly what you’re doing now? You are all cowards! You’ve heard his story, and none of you want to condemn him, but you refuse to even _consider_ the alternative!”

Yakov pinches his nose. How many of the wrinkles on the master waterbender’s face are the fault of his star pupil? “Vitya, I know you’ve grown attached—”

“Attached? Is that what you call it?” Viktor laughs, sweet and sharp at the same time. He pulls his hand away to wrap his arm around Yuuri’s waist, pressing the warmth of his body up against Yuuri’s side. “I love him, Yakov, I would have thought that was obvious.”

And then he turns, fixing the full intensity of his gaze on Yuuri, not the council, with a gentle smile on his face and the blue of his eyes glowing like healing water.

“Firebender or not, _prince_ or not, I love him more than I’ll ever have the words to say.”

Yakov is grumbling, the rest of the council looking to one another for support, and behind them the crowd stirs up whispered, scandalized conversation in their confusion. All Yuuri can process, however, is Viktor’s eyes shining down at him, so clearly filled with love that Yuuri cannot even bring himself to question it. Those same eyes, that same love, had stared back at him those nights together in their tent when they kissed each other senseless, during those afternoons they spent collecting firewood, but also in the weeks, _months,_ before all this happened—sitting next to each other in front of the fireplace, laying together in the moonlight on the cliffs, learning to bend and dance and heal together like they couldn’t stand to be apart.

It is more than Yuuri deserves—more than anyone could _ever_ deserve—but dammit, Yuuri doesn’t care. His eyes burn as he wraps his arm around Viktor’s waist in turn, fingers settling over the jut of his hipbone and rubbing patterns with his thumb through the thin patient’s robe.

“Hey! Shut up!” a familiar voice calls, breaking Yuuri and Viktor out of their trance and silencing the rumbling crowd. They turn to find that Yuri has stepped forward from the circle on onlookers. Yuuri feels Viktor twitch toward movement, but holds him back. “You’re all being idiots! Yeah, my brother’s a moron, and _yeah_ I’m pissed that he didn’t _tell me_ that I’ve been sleeping down the hall from a firebender for months. I’ve been over here calling him _earth boy_ like a dumbass. But Yuuri or Katsuki or whoever the fuck is obviously completely harmless! All he’s done for _months_ is help cook dinner and get his ass beaten at Pai Sho.”

Yakov sighs. “Yura, please…”

Yuri ignores his teacher. “You’re threatening to send him back home? Seriously? Did you _see_ how terrified he got when you mentioned it? He’s clearly just as afraid of the Fire Nation as the rest of us! You’re all over here treating him like he’s dangerous when the whole reason he ran away was so he _wouldn’t be._ Grandpa was right, he is _clearly_ nothing like the Firelord, he’s just some shy dumbass with a crush on my brother. Even Vitya’s stupid polar bear dog loves him.” Yuri scowls. “Unlike Ivan, she bit him last year.”

Ivan steps forward with a shout. “Hey!”

“Don’t _hey_ me, you useless piece of turtle-seal jerky! You just arrested someone for saving my brother’s life! Get over yourself. Yeah, Vitya’s fifty times the waterbender you’ll ever be, whatever. Stop whining about it and traipsing around like an insecure _dickwad_ and practice, for fuck’s sake! If you want respect, fucking earn it!”

Nikolai grumbles. “Yuratchka, language.”

“At least I say what I mean,” Yuri grumbles, his arms crossed tight over his chest. “At least it’s the truth. The rest of you keep saying all this shit but you refuse to stand up for _anything."_ Yuri glances at Viktor and Yuuri, then. Viktor looks impressed, Yuuri completely ludicrous with his mouth hanging open. It makes Yuri smirk, at least.

Chief Mikhail sighs, running a hand down his face. “Then what, exactly, do you propose we do?”

Maybe it’s Yuri’s crass, impassioned speech. Maybe it’s Viktor’s arm looped around Yuuri’s waist, keeping him grounded. Maybe it’s his freed limbs, or being eye-level with the council’s table, or Viktor’s love and forgiveness still ringing in his ears. Whatever the reason, the waves of self-hatred that had been beating him into submission recede like the tide, leaving him gasping, grasping, but finding his footing once again.

“Let me stay.”

The chief visibly draws back, his gaze snapping to Yuuri. The rest of the council members lean forward in their seats.

“Excuse me?”

Yuuri stands tall. Viktor’s arm tightens around his waist. “Let me stay,” he repeats, “and I promise, you won’t regret it.”

Yakov bristles. “You have a lot of nerve—”

“I know,” Yuuri interrupts, which he probably shouldn’t do, but the words he couldn’t find earlier are bubbling up his throat and he can hardly hold them down. “Believe me, I know what— _who_ I am. I’ve spent much longer than you have hating myself for it. Fire is death and destruction and it’s _dangerous,_ that’s what I’ve been told my whole life. But I’m realizing now that that’s only part of the story.” His hands move almost of their own accord, cupping together in front of him. Calling on his re-energized inner-fire, he draws out a small flame into his palms.

The councilmen draw in sharp breaths, flinching back from the display; behind Yuuri, there’s a small commotion as the crowd cranes their necks to see. Yuuri understands, because for all he’d heard about waterbending growing up, he’d nevertheless been struck still the first time he saw Viktor stream water through the air. Despite their fear, the flame remains small, just barely filling Yuuri’s hands and flickering gently like a lantern. At his side, Viktor draws closer to the warmth and any lingering cold flees from Yuuri’s body.

“My fire saved Viktor’s life when nothing else could,” Yuuri continues, nursing the flame as if it were an infant in his arms and speaking around his smile. “It’s… it’s warmth, and life, and it can be beautiful, if you let it.”

Slowly, Yuuri pulls his hands apart, stretching the ball of flames into a long cord that twists through the air, following every twitch of his fingers. He’s seen Viktor do this with water many times and found it so enchanting that he demanded Viktor help him learn to do it with fire—streaming his element through the air to wind around his fingers, passing over his palm and under his wrist like dancing vines. The fire weaves between his knuckles and wraps around his forearms, following every minute movement of his hands, caressing his skin but never burning.

He has barely allowed the flames to begin to dissipate when Viktor reaches out, laying his palm over Yuuri’s and threading their fingers together. He’s smiling at Yuuri like he can’t help it, and Yuuri suddenly has something to say.

“I ended up here on accident,” Yuuri begins, turning back to the council, “but I stayed for a reason. I stayed for _Viktor._ And no matter what you decide, I will hold onto him as long as I can. As long as he lets me.”

Yuuri holds the council’s gaze, no matter how desperately he wants to look to see Viktor’s reaction. Still, he can hear Viktor’s breath catch, can hear the pleased little rumble coming from his throat, and it makes Yuuri smile and hold Viktor closer.

Yakov heaves another long-suffering sigh. “You are terrible for his work ethic. He’s missed more practices in the past few months than the last ten years combined.” Viktor goes stiff at Yuuri’s side, but Yakov’s scowl tweaks upward. “Still,” Yakov grumbles, “it’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him.”

Yuuri’s heart thrums in his chest, a dangerous, hopeful rhythm. Viktor squeezes his hand.

“Look I… I am not your enemy.” Yuuri licks his lips, surveys the council’s dubious expressions, and takes a deep breath. “What my grandfather, and his father and grandfather before him have done, to your tribe and the rest of it world… It’s unforgivable. But the rest of my family aren’t like that. My mother, she… she tries her best. She’s his only child and he raised her to be a cold-blooded tyrant, but instead she’s the kindest person I know. _She’s_ the one who kept my powers from him and made sure my sister and I weren’t raised to kill and wage war. The Firelord has too much leverage over her now, but— but once she’s Firelord, she’ll…”

“Yuuri, it’s okay,” Viktor whispers. “You don’t owe them this.”

Yuuri realizes his hands are shaking. He swallows, looks back at the council’s table, and tries to hold his head high. This is it— this is him, Prince Yuuri Katsuki of the Fire Nation, taking the self-hatred and shame that has clawed at his ankles for so long and crushing it beneath his feet. This is him, standing tall in front of men who would echo everything horrible he’d ever thought about himself, and saying _no._

This is Yuuri, letting himself be the man Viktor had always insisted he could be: a proud, strong, gentle firebender.

“I know why you’re hesitant,” he says, “but I promise you, my fire is nothing to be afraid of.”

There’s a chilly emptiness around Yuuri’s waist as Viktor pulls himself away, turning to face Yuuri instead. He rolls up his sleeves and extends his arms between them like an offering, his forearms facing the sky and fingertips brushing Yuuri’s wrist.

“Show them,” Viktor whispers.

This time, Yuuri doesn’t even hesitate. He reaches back to Viktor, placing his hands just above Viktor’s upturned wrists and finding his skin is still a little cold. For Yuuri, the rest really is instinct—reaching out to Viktor to keep him safe and warm has become as automatic a reaction as breathing. Yuuri channels his inner-fire toward the river of energy he feels pulsing beneath Viktor’s skin and lets it surround their connection. He watches, this time, as colorful flames flicker into existence around his hands, licking at Viktor’s skin and sinking deeper to warm his chi. Yuuri knows the risk: a misstep here, in front of the council and the entire tribe, would seal his fate. But strangely, he is not afraid. Instead, he feels only pride.

The flames do not glow white as they did out in the icy wilderness, but colored firelight flickers up to Viktor’s face, reflecting in his eyes a longing Yuuri has only ever seen after pulling back from a deep, passionate kiss.

Eventually, Yuuri disperses the healing flames and pulls his hands away from Viktor’s arms—or he tries to, at least. Viktor catches his fingers, only seconds ago covered in fire, and bends to press his lips to Yuuri’s knuckles.

Yuuri blushes. Behind them, Yuri gags. And behind Yuri, some members of the crowd murmur and sigh.

At the head of the square, the councilmen are speechless.

“Let him stay!” someone calls from the crowd, a voice Yuuri has never heard before.

“Yeah, let’m stay!” someone else cries out. Yuuri whips around to try to find the sources of the cries, but by the time he’s turned there’s another voice yelling to his left, then his right, then straight ahead again, even from the area to the left of the council’s table where the warriors from the hunting trip stand—they’re all shouting the same thing.

_Let him stay._

It feels like flying over the ice on the back of a polar bear dog, his head light and his stomach dropped out beneath him. The chief eventually stands, holding up his hands to quiet the commotion, and soon enough the crowd falls silent.

“The only fair thing to do is put it to a council vote, then,” the chief decides, looking from side to side at his other council members. “Those who wish the prince to stay, please stand.”

Nikolai is the first to stand from his chair, almost without hesitation. Yuuri hears Yuri’s small breath of relief from behind him.

Yakov stands next, his face utterly impassive, and Viktor squeezes Yuuri’s hand. Yuuri looks over to find him beaming.

The councilman on the left stands, followed shortly by the councilmen on the right; their grimaces betray their lack of enthusiasm, but it’s understandable, Yuuri thinks.

The chief sits in the middle, flanked on either side by standing colleagues. Judging by the audience’s bated breath, the chief’s vote must be crucial.

And then, after what feels like an eternity, a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Chief Mikhail looks Yuuri straight in the eyes, nods, and stands tall before his tribe.

“Nice,” Yuri whistles. Viktor laughs. Yuuri clings to Viktor’s hand and tries to make his lungs work again.

“The council has reached its decision,” he proclaims, looking strangely pleased at this turn of events. “Yuuri Katsuki of the Fire Nation, you may stay. You and Viktor have had a very eventful morning, so we will discuss the logistics later, once you have both rested. Understood?”

It takes Yuuri a few seconds to find his voice. “Yes,” he replies weakly. Viktor echoes his agreement, sounding equally stunned.

“This gathering is over,” Yakov announces. “Everyone, please return to your homes.”

The crowd begins to chatter amongst themselves as they disband, a wave of noise displacing tense silence. The second Yuuri ceases to be the center of attention, he feels a weight life off of his chest, but whatever adrenaline has been coursing through his veins begins to wash away, leaving his nerves utterly frayed.

“You look like you’re gonna collapse, Fire boy,” Yuri says, then scowls. “Hm. Doesn’t have the same ring to it. I’ll think of something. But just so we’re clear, there’s no way in _fuck_ I’m calling you ‘Your Highness’.”

A choked sound resonates from Yuuri’s throat. It’s been so long since he heard that title, and he hasn’t missed it at all. “Please don’t. Just Yuuri is fine.”

“Yeah, I’ll think of something,” Yuri dismisses with a wave of his hand as they turn to leave the main square. Viktor wraps an arm supportively around Yuuri’s waist, but as unstable as Yuuri feels he isn’t the one who nearly drowned a few hours ago. Viktor had showed up to the trial leaning on a walking stick, Yuuri recalls, so wraps his own arm around Viktor’s waist in turn.

Pressed up against each other as they walk, Yuuri can hear Viktor’s breathing; it’s shallower and quicker than normal and Yuuri slows their pace just slightly. Yuri trails along beside them, his hands shoved in his pockets.

“I can make food or something,” he offers. “If you’re hungry, or whatever.”

Yuuri should be hungry, but the thought of food makes him feel vaguely nauseated. Still, he appreciates the offer and is about to open his mouth to agree when Viktor speaks.

“That’s a good idea. I think Yuuri and I need to rest first, though. You could start a pot of soup?”

“Fine, sure,” Yuri agrees. He kicks a loose chunk of ice, sending it skidding along the pathway leading to their house. It lands in a nearby canal with a splash. Yuuri tries to sneak a glance at Yuri’s face, but he keeps averting his gaze.

“Thank you, Yuri,” is all Yuuri can really say. The words are almost difficult to pronounce, because of how much he means them.

Yuri shrugs as they arrive at the entrance of their home. “It’s just soup.”

“No, thank you for what you did. Back there. For what you said.”

“Oh.” Yuri shrugs, still not looking up from the ground. “It was no big deal.”

“Yes it was,” Yuuri disagrees, remembering the relief that had flooded him at Yuri’s candid defense. “It was very brave.”

Yuri tries desperately to hide the redness that spots his cheeks, but Yuuri doesn’t miss it. “Thanks. I just, you know. Was tired of their bullshit.” He ducks under the curtain and into the living area of their home, heading straight to the cooking supplies to avoid Yuuri’s gaze.

The second Yuuri and Viktor step through the doorway, they are greeted with enthusiastic barking. Makkachin bounds across the room, heading straight for Viktor, but Yuuri only has a moment to panic before she skids to a stop and lets out a whine, pressing up against Viktor’s legs instead of tackling him to the ground. Viktor lets go of Yuuri to sink to his knees, burying his hands in her fur and letting her lick every part of his face while he cooes, _good girl, I missed you, such a good girl, yes you are…_

Makkachin pulls away from Viktor slightly to nudge against Yuuri’s knee, and he scratches that spot beneath her right ear that she loves so much. He wants to say something nice to her, but his voice gets caught in his throat.

“Yura, we’re going to take a nap,” Viktor announces when he stands back up, Makkachin still glued to his side. He does not make a move toward the bedrooms, instead watching closely for Yuri’s reaction.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Yura…”

“What?” He’s still bent over the cooking pot near the fireplace.

“I’m alright, you know,” Viktor says, hesitance hanging around the edges.

Yuri snorts. “Yeah. You’re lucky like that.”

After living with the boy for months, Yuuri easily reads the contempt in Yuri’s voice as the fear it’s meant to hide. Viktor sighs.

“I’m not going anywhere, Yura. I promise.”

“Yeah,” Yuri replies, his voice suspiciously tight. He still won’t look back at them. “Okay.”

This isn’t going to be resolved now; judging by the resignation on Viktor’s face, he knows that perfectly well. With a beckoning glance at Yuuri and a pat to Makkachin’s head, he turns down the hallway toward their bedrooms. He pulls back the curtain and heads into his own room, the polar bear dog trailing after him and curling up on her bed in the corner, but Yuuri pauses just outside. His own room is just one door down, and perhaps that’s where Viktor wants him to go. If that’s what Viktor wishes then Yuuri will do it, even if every second spent away from Viktor’s touch feels like an hour alone on the glacial plains.

Viktor answers the question for him, in the end, not with words but with actions—Yuuri watches from the doorway as Viktor reaches out and melts the wall he’d once erected to carve Yuuri a space from his own. The ice retreats back into the ground just as it came, leaving no sign the room had ever been divided. Viktor crosses the space, grabs the corner of Yuuri’s bedroll, and drags it until it lays side by side with his own. He nods, satisfied, and sits down on top of the blankets.

When he looks up he sees Yuuri still standing in the doorway and frowns.

“Yuuri?” he asks. “If you’d rather I put it back…”

“No!”

Viktor’s shoulders draw back with the force of Yuuri’s protest. “Okay.”

Yuuri takes a step into the bedroom, just one, and lets the curtain fall closed behind him. Viktor looks up at him from the blankets, expression carefully blank, and every part of Yuuri’s body screams to join him but no muscle will make the first move. He feels more ridiculous by the second, just standing there. His hands clench into fists at his side, then relax, then clench again; his mouth hangs open like he’s going to speak, but no words arrive.

And Viktor just looks up at him, waiting, like he’s willing to stop the world for hours if that’s what it takes for Yuuri to find his voice. Nothing Yuuri could say would be worthy of that. His tongue feels foreign in his mouth.

“I don’t know what to say,” he finally admits, the words coming out in a whisper so Viktor won’t hear the anxious stranglehold that has seized Yuuri’s vocal cords.

“Then don’t say anything.” Viktor pats the blankets next to him and coaxes, “Just come to bed.”

Something rumbles low in Yuuri’s chest as Viktor’s invitation pulls him forward like a rope wrapped around his waist. He stops just at the foot of the blankets as all strength evaporates from his body, gravity sinking him to his knees. He has blooming bruises on his kneecaps that groan in protest, but the pain lessens when he sinks down onto his heels.

Viktor stares at him, this time not trying to hide the twinge of alarm tugging at his eyebrows. Yuuri wants so badly to avert his gaze, to hang his head or close his eyes or _something_ so that he doesn’t have to look Viktor in the eyes right now, but that would be weak and unfair to Viktor, who has been nothing but patient. The blue of his irises makes Yuuri’s chest burn. His fingers ball into fists over his thighs.

“I should have told you the truth.”

Relief floods Viktor’s eyes the second Yuuri speaks. His shoulders relax. “I already told you, it’s alright.”

Yuuri shakes his head. “You shouldn’t forgive so quickly—”

“What is there to forgive? You were lying to protect yourself, not to hurt me.”

“But I did.”

“Yuuri,” Viktor breathes, scooting forward on the bedspread. He takes Yuuri’s hands in his and looks back at him, closer than ever, with wide and disbelieving eyes. “Finding out who you are didn’t _hurt me.”_

Yuuri takes a shaky breath. “You had a right to know before.” Before everyone else, before everything went to hell, before they kissed and took off their clothes and held each other close at night.

Viktor frowns and searches Yuuri’s face for answers. “Why? Because of _this?”_ One of Viktor’s hands flutters up from its spot against Yuuri’s and lands on Yuuri’s cheek; his palm is cold but the soft, the cradling pressure filling Yuuri with warmth. His thumb traces back and forth on Yuuri’s cheekbone and he whispers, “I would have fallen in love with you no matter what.”

 _“Vitya…”_ Yuuri whimpers, his eyes fluttering with Viktor’s touch and his heart racing with Viktor’s words.

“Besides, it’s awfully romantic, don’t you think? I have my very own handsome prince, here to rescue me with his awe-inspiring powers?”

Yuuri groans, but the smile twisting his lips gives him away even as he tries to bury his entire face in Viktor’s hand. Viktor laughs and Yuuri can’t help but look up; he is breathtakingly precious when he laughs.

And then Yuuri remembers how close he came to losing this, how close the world came to never hearing or seeing Viktor’s laugh again, and his smile disappears. Nausea threatens at the base of his throat.

“Come on,” Viktor urges, rocking backward to lay down on their conjoined bedrolls. Yuuri moves with him, crawling forward to chase after Viktor’s touch, unwilling to let it disappear from his skin.

They settle down together like they did the last night they spent in the tent, Viktor on his back and Yuuri settled against his chest where he can hear his heartbeat. The skin beneath Yuuri’s head is bare and warm, the healer’s robe parted nearly down to Viktor’s navel. If Yuuri cranes his head upward, he can bury his face in the crook of Viktor’s neck; he does this, pressing close, breathing against Viktor’s skin. He can feel Viktor’s pulse against the tip of his nose, beating in sync with the thumping of his heart.

“I was so scared,” Yuuri whispers to himself, to Viktor, to no one. It is strange, to be home and safe from prying eyes after hours of chest-crushing scrutiny. Screaming at the side of a hole in the ice would seem like years ago, if not for the way the memory burns behind his eyelids and at the top of his throat, begging for him to cry it out, throw it up, to do _something_ to purge it from his body.

Viktor hums, rubbing circles with his thumb over Yuuri’s lower back.

“Your heart stopped beating,” Yuuri pleads, unsure what he wants Viktor to do with this information but knowing that he desperately needs to get it out.

“Ah, Yura is right,” Viktor sighs, “I am so lucky you were there. But I... I wish you didn’t have to go through that.”

Yuuri frowns. “You’re the one who almost died.” Beneath him, Yuuri feels Viktor shrug.

“I hardly remember any of it.”

“Hardly?”

“It’s nothing,” Viktor dismisses, his tone light. “I was unconscious.”

But there it is: a slight uptick in the rhythm of Viktor’s heart beneath Yuuri’s ear. With his face pressed up against the side of Viktor’s throat, Yuuri can feel the way Viktor swallows back whatever it is he’s trying to hide. How often does he do this, Yuuri wonders, shoving down his pain with a smile?

“It’s not nothing if it’s hurting you,” Yuuri says. He has a hand pressed to Viktor’s chest right next to his own head, and when his fingers twitch he feels Viktor shiver.

“When I woke up in the healing hut, I thought I was with you, in the tent. But you weren’t there and Lilia told me what happened and I… Remembered. Falling through the ice. I hit my head as I fell and I’m sure I lost consciousness pretty soon after that, but I…”

Viktor trails off and Yuuri wants so badly to pull away and look at him to gauge his emotions, but he knows it’s easier to talk into an empty room than directly to the face of someone you love. “It’s okay,” he murmurs, the heat of his breath blooming over the base of Viktor’s neck, and lets him take his time.

Viktor takes his hand away from Yuuri’s lower back, bringing it up to thread his thread fingers through Yuuri’s at his chest. “I remember sinking,” he admits. “For a few seconds, probably, but it felt like forever. I couldn’t move, couldn’t waterbend, I just watched the circle of light get farther and farther…” Out of nowhere, he gasps. “Did the polar bear dog make it?”

Despite the serious situation, Yuuri can’t help but smile. This man. He loves this man. “Yes, he managed to pull himself out.”

Viktor’s breath whistles on the exhale. “Ah, good.”

“Do you remember anything else?”

“No. I suppose that is a good thing.”

Yuuri can still remember the excruciating pain of breathing seawater into screaming lungs, the acute horror of flailing helplessly and desperately in depths you can’t escape. He does not tell Viktor this, just lets the wave of relief roll over him privately.

“That’s good,” he echoes. He twists his fingers around Viktor’s absently.

“When Lilia told me what Maxim had told her when he dropped me off, about what happened, it took me awhile to understand how… how bad the situation was for you. I don’t know what I expected, running up to the square like that, but it wasn’t… _that.”_ Viktor squeezes Yuuri’s hand, but Yuuri still feels the way his fingers tremble.

“I can’t blame them for being angry.”

Viktor scoffs. “Well, I can.”

“Vitya, it is reasonable for them to be afraid of my bending—”

“Perhaps in other circumstances,” Viktor huffs, “but if not for you, if not for your _firebending,_ that gathering today would have been my funeral.”

Those words strike Yuuri to his core, send him back to Viktor’s almost-corpse stretched out on the ice, back to the hysteric panic of six minutes spent waiting, back to the banquet when he made the split-second decision to volunteer for the hunting trip and if he hadn’t, _if he hadn’t…_

“Don’t talk like that,” Yuuri begs.

“Okay. I’m sorry.” Viktor pries Yuuri’s fingers loose; his nails have been digging little crescent-moons into Viktor’s palm.

“I almost lost you,” Yuuri whispers, bringing Viktor’s palm to his lips and kissing the nail-marks away. “When you wouldn’t wake up and I decided to try firebending, I thought— I thought that at least if you lived, everything would be okay. Even if I could never see you again. I would have done anything, _given_ anything. But then you were breathing again and they took you away from me and I was wrong. I’m selfish, Vitya. I didn’t want to lose you, no matter what.”

“You wouldn’t have lost me,” Viktor promises. With Yuuri’s head pressed to Viktor’s chest, he can hear the deep rumbling of every word. “I meant what I said. If they sent you away, I would have gone with you. Yura probably would have come too, there’s no way we would have been able to convince him to stay. You, me, Yura, Makkachin—we would have been just fine.”

It is comforting, if a little strange, knowing that Viktor is as devoted to Yuuri as Yuuri is to Viktor. Yuuri, who was ready to jump into freezing, pitch black water if it meant even the dimmest chance of saving Viktor, wouldn’t have thought such a thing was possible.

 _We deserve each other,_ Yuuri thinks, and it feels a little ground-breaking. Surely there will be days where he doubts this, but right now, in his half-delirious post-traumatic exhaustion, he knows it is the truth. Only hours ago, Yuuri was tied up next to turtle seal carcasses thinking he was approaching the end of his and Viktor’s story. Yet here he is, the man he loves wrapped up in his arms with nothing and no one to force him to let go. He kisses Viktor’s palm again, and again, and again.

At some point, high on relief and Viktor’s living, breathing touch, he swings one leg over Viktor’s hip to straddle his waist. Viktor makes a delighted little noise of surprise.

Yuuri settles his hands on top of Viktor’s chest, the loose robe’s lapels pushed off to the side, and he feels Viktor’s chi beneath his palms almost immediately. The energy flows underneath Viktor’s skin, strong and familiar. When Yuuri reaches out with his fire, the water dances up to meet him and Viktor melts into the blankets.

The first few times Yuuri did this, it still held the terrifying edge of a new discovery. Now, though, it’s just another type of casual intimacy, another way to hold Viktor in his hands and make him feel cherished.

But then, a few minutes later, after Yuuri has trailed his inner-fire over every mended rib and functioning organ and pulsing blood vessel in Viktor’s chest, that thrill of discovery bursts forward anew—he leans down, presses a kiss to the skin above Viktor’s heart, and hears the man below him gasp.

_“Oh.”_

Yuuri has seen firebending masters breathe fire from their mouths, has seen festival performers wield arcs of flame with the flick of their tongues, but he’d never even dreamed of trying it himself. He never expected, then, to be able to touch Viktor with his lips the same way he does with his hands, but it happens, his inner-fire kissing warmth into the pool of chi surrounding Viktor’s heart just as his mouth kisses warmth to the skin of his chest.

“Do it again,” Viktor begs, breathless, and Yuuri does, lingering longer this time. He trails kisses down to Viktor’s navel, to the swirling pool of life that centers there; he hops over to Viktor’s wrist and kisses his pulse, kisses up his arm, over his collarbone, up the hot column of his neck, each time bestowing little spots of warmth on the watery energy flowing beneath his skin. Viktor shudders, gasps, makes sweet little mewling noises with every single touch, never tiring of it. Yuuri traces his kisses down Viktor’s jaw, every second getting closer to Viktor’s lips, and Viktor wraps his arms low around Yuuri’s waist to pull him down, pull him closer, pull him—

There. _There._ Yuuri does not quite understand what he feels, his lips and tongue and breath and chi sinking into Viktor’s so as to be inseparable. He couldn’t explain it if he tried; he only knows that, even with layers of clothing between them, it is the _deepest_ touch he has ever experienced.

“You are amazing, Yuuri Katsuki,” Viktor breathes into Yuuri’s lungs when they pull back sightly for air. Yuuri smiles against Viktor’s lips, willing a tiny kiss of fire to surge forward on its own. Viktor’s chi ripples out beneath it and he lets out a tender little gasp.

“So are you, Viktor Leonidovich…” And then he trails off, pulling back from Viktor with a frown. “Do you have a family name?”

“Mm. Nikiforov. I don’t use it very often.”

“That’s nice,” Yuuri sighs, settling back with his head on Viktor’s shoulder and his face in the crook of his neck. “Viktor Leonidovich Nikiforov. Vitya.”

Viktor shivers beneath him. “Beautiful.”

“Yes, you are.”

Viktor smiles. “I meant _you,_ my charming prince.”

 _“Please_ don’t start calling me that.”

“Aw, why not?”

“It’s embarrassing!”

“Fine. I won’t call you that... in public. Happy?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

Viktor laughs and reaches up to brush an errant strand of hair out of Yuuri’s eyes, tucking it behind his ear. “You said something, earlier,” he mutters, his eyes fluttering over Yuuri’s forehead, mouth, jaw, nose, eyes. “That you want to hold onto me as long as I let you.”

Yuuri hums. “Yes.”

“So what if I always let you?”

The words are familiar, Viktor’s promise from their last night together echoing back in Yuuri’s head. _Always, my Yuuri, always,_ he’d said, and here he is asking again. Now, it’s Yuuri’s turn for a promise.

He pulls his head out of the crook of Viktor’s neck, reaches up, and tilts Viktor’s mouth down to meet his.

“That would be perfect,” he whispers with one last kiss to Viktor’s lips, “because I want to hold onto you forever.”

 

❄

 

Yuuri awakens many hours later from deep, much-needed sleep to find Viktor stirring beneath him and Yuri scowling in the doorway.

“Are you two just planning on sleeping for the rest of your lives?”

“Mm, yes,” Viktor mumbles, his arm tightening around Yuuri’s waist.

“Well you need to eat. I didn’t make you idiots food just for it to sit in a pot all day while you _cuddle.”_

Yuuri stomach pangs at the mention of food, perhaps the only thing that could override the heavy desire to lay his head back in the crook of Viktor’s shoulder and fall back to sleep immediately.

“Ah, yes,” Viktor agrees, the words distended around a yawn. “Food. We should eat, shouldn’t we?”

On sleep-stiff legs they follow Yuri into the living room where they are greeted by a happy dog and a delicious smell wafting over from the pot in the fireplace. Around the sides of the front curtain seeps a bit of early-evening sunlight—they really had slept most of the day away.

They sit down together to eat Yuri’s soup, the aroma comforting and the broth warm in Yuuri’s stomach.

“This is delicious,” Yuuri compliments.

“Thanks.”

Yuri doesn’t avoid their gazes like he did before, but he doesn’t say much either. It’s a good of a time as any, Yuuri supposes. He sets his half-full bowl down on the ground in front of him. “Yuri, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Yuri simply shrugs. “I don’t blame you, I guess. I mean, it’s not like I would’ve told anyone, I’m not a snitch. But it makes sense. Why you didn’t.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. But like. Still, you could’ve told me. I mean, _firebending,_ that’s cool as _shit.”_

Yuuri blinks. “You think so?”

“Yeah! I mean you can shoot _fire_ from your _hands,_ that’s epic!”

“You know,” Viktor muses, a hint of a smile on his lips, “Yuuri and I have been coming up with some ways to adapt firebending techniques for water. If you wanted to learn…”

“Yes! _Hell_ yes!”

Viktor beams, his lips in the shape of a heart. “Perfect! Yuuri, we have a student!”

Yuuri snorts. “We have no idea what we’re doing, you know.”

“That’s what makes it fun! Oh, Yura, you could even stay and dance with us after!”

Yuri chokes on his soup. “What?! No!”

“Come on, you’ll love it!”

“I will not.”

It might have been believable, if Yuuri didn’t remember watching Yuri dance alongside Viktor at the welcome banquet all those months ago, as light as a feather on his feet and every bit of himself poured into the movement. Yes, he would love it.

“Hey, Sparky, my soup is cold. Heat it up?”

“Um,” Yuuri says.

Viktor snorts. “Sparky?”

Yuri just shoves his bowl into Yuuri’s hands. “Come on, don’t be shy!”

As the only person capable of generating warmth in a city made of ice, Yuuri probably should have seen this coming. He lights a flame beneath Yuri’s bowl, holds it until the liquid begins to simmer, and wonders if he should feel annoyed at being used for his abilities.

He never quite manages annoyance, though—not with his chest so full of pride.

 

❄

 

Two mornings later, after some well-deserved rest, Yuuri has the utterly terrifying pleasure of meeting Lilia Baranovskaya, Yakov’s wife and Viktor’s healing master. Despite hearing her name approximately three times a day for months, Yuuri has never even laid eyes on her until he ducks into her healing hut and finds himself standing practically nose-to-nose with an unblinking, unflinching rail of a woman. She reminds him instantly of Minako, the way she scans him to appraise his every flaw. It’s… oddly comforting.

“Hm,” she says with a scowl, “you must be Yuuri. The mysterious firebending healer.”

Mysterious isn’t exactly a word Yuuri would use to describe himself. “Yes, ma’am.”

Lilia’s gaze flies to Viktor, who stands tall at Yuuri’s side. Yuuri had said that he could go alone, but Viktor insisted on accompanying him. Yuuri is suddenly very grateful for his presence.

“And you helped encourage this, I presume?”

“I suggested it might be possible. Yuuri did all of the hard work.”

“Interesting. Yuuri, you will work with me from now on to hone this ability and learn more about its possibilities. I like a challenge, and I think this could be interesting.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Soon, you will tell me everything you feel when you do this fire healing. But for now…”

Lilia reaches into her pocket, draws out something sharp, and slits a shallow cut across her palm. Yuuri yelps.

“What the _hell—”_

“Trial by fire, I believe they say,” Lilia replies, voice and face as impassive as ever. At Yuuri’s side, Viktor laughs under his breath. Was he _expecting_ this? Had she done this to him, too? Lilia shoves her bleeding hand toward Yuuri and says, “Show me what you can do.”

For a few moments, Yuuri can hardly speak past the shock, but the desire to prove himself, to _better_ himself, glows hot in his chest. So Yuuri takes a deep breath, stokes his inner fire, and lets the healing flames flare beneath his skin.

 

❄

 

Slowly but surely, they fall into a routine.

They spend their mornings with Lilia, working side by side to hone their abilities. Afterward Viktor goes to train with Yakov, which always leaves Yuuri in a little bit of awe; their first few healing sessions leave him completely drained and in serious need of a nap. While Viktor works with Yakov, Yuuri usually takes Makkachin for a leisurely afternoon stroll and visits the city’s small market to get ingredients for dinner before heading to the training area to catch the last half hour of Viktor and Yuri’s waterbending lessons.

“Your form is abysmal! How many times do I have to tell you to widen your stance? A four year old could knock you over with a basic water whip!”

Viktor always takes the criticism with a smile—either playful or humoring, but never downright fake. He’ll adjust his stance or whatever else Yakov was criticizing, just a little bit, and throw back something like, “It’s always good to be light on your feet!”

“Not if you land on your ass it’s not!”

“Don’t worry so much, Yakov!”

Yuri, on the other hand, grits his teeth through criticism but makes every single correction Yakov belts his way. Viktor tells Yuuri, one day after practice, that this only really started once Yuuri began watching their practices.

Whether or not Yuuri is with Viktor, he attracts stares wherever he goes. This isn’t really anything new—the other watertribe citizens always saw him as a fascinating outsider, but now they have much more to whisper about as he passes by. Sometimes when he catches someone staring he sees pity in their eyes, others times distaste, but he doesn’t let their opinions get under his skin as much as he once might have. It was many of these same citizens, in the end, who had empathy for him when he needed it the most. _Let him stay,_ they chanted. He smiles at them when he catches them staring, and sometimes they smile back.

The first person to actually approach him is a young girl, barely more than a toddler, who tugs on his robe when he’s trying to pick out cucumberquats at the market.

“Are you Yuuri?” she asks, blinking up at him with giant blue eyes. She pronounces his name with inexplicable reverence.

Yuuri freezes. “Uh. Yes. I’m— That’s me.”

“I want a fire. Please will you make me a fire?”

Scanning the crowd, Yuuri notices a woman standing just to the left, her arms full of groceries and her eyes flitting between him and the little girl. She’s smiling at them, ever so slightly.

“Um…”

The woman looks him directly in the eyes and nods.

“Okay,” Yuuri says, his heart pounding faster than it has any right to. He kneels down to the girl’s level. “I know fire is pretty, but it can be dangerous, too. You can’t touch it or keep it—you just have to admire and respect it. Is that alright?”

The little girl nods furiously, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Yuuri holds out his hands and cups them together.

“Put your hands up under mine, okay?”

“Mhm.” Her hands are impossibly tiny and her fingers adorably chubby. “What now?”

“I’m going to make us a little fire. Just to look at, okay?”

“Mhm.”

When Yuuri summons a flame to his palms, the little girl gasps, her mouth falling open into the sweetest little _‘o’._ The fire fills Yuuri’s cupped hands and flickers up toward the sky.

“Woah!”

“Pretty, huh?”

 _“So_ pretty! It’s like it’s _dancing!”_

Yuuri laughs. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Mama, look, I’m holding fire!”

“That’s very nice, Alya!”

The little girl pulls her hands away suddenly, seemingly satisfied with the demonstration. “Thank you, Yuuri!” she chirps before speeding off past her mother, who mouths _thank you_ at Yuuri before turning on her heels to chase after her daughter.

When Yuuri stands, he finds that most of the market-goers had stopped to watch. Most of them are still staring. Yuuri’s face turns red.

“It’d be handy to have you around the house for whenever my husband ‘misplaces’ the spark rocks,” the vendor behind Yuuri says as she finishes bagging Yuuri’s cucumberquats. And then she winks.

When Yuuri recounts this baffling encounter to Viktor that night, the waterbender beams and plies Yuuri with kisses. “Everyone is loves you! As they should.”

Yuuri squirms under the attention. “Vitya…”

“And everyone is jealous of me, because I get you and they don’t!”

“I’m not sure that’s—Vitya!” Yuuri protests, because Viktor plants a kiss on the Yuuri’s neck and it _tickles._

And then Yuri throws a ladle at their heads.

 

❄

 

Even more surprising than the encounter in the market is a certain encounter a few weeks later, just outside of Yakov’s training area.

“Yuuri?”

The voice freezes Yuuri in his tracks completely. He whirls around to find Ivan standing behind him, clad in sparring attire. Yuuri has come to the lesson at a different time than normal to watch Viktor spar with Yakov’s other students, and in hindsight he should have realized Ivan would be here. The waterbender scowls, but more with discomfort than contempt.

“Look, I’ve been thinking. About, well... you know. And it was a pretty shitty thing to do, treating you like that after what you did for Viktor.” He bristles, his nose twitching. He won’t quite look Yuuri in the eye. “So, I’m sorry.”

For a few long moments, Yuuri doesn’t know what to say. While he appreciates the apology, it’s not as if he’s been waiting with bated breath for this moment. The truth is, he hasn’t spared Ivan much of a thought since the trial. It must require quite a hefty bit of guilt and self-reflection for someone with such an inflated sense of self importance to acknowledge he has done something wrong, let alone apologize for it.

“Thank you, Ivan,” Yuuri says with a cordial nod, and he means it.

(But if he still feels a little bit satisfied watching Viktor bring Ivan to his knees in three seconds flat during their sparring match— well, he’s only human.)

 

❄

 

They don’t have to wait for the sun to set before heading to the cliffs now. They’ll leave together just after dinner, sometimes with Yuri when he decides he has nothing better to do, the evening sun low in the sky and the snow glittering golden in its light. It is strange, at first, to bend and dance together without a star-studded sky stretched above them and moonlight reflected in Viktor’s eyes. Yuuri’s fire looks different outside of the cover of darkness and the flames come easier, too, his body humming with the sun’s energy. Yuuri loved their clandestine nights together, but now in the light of day he can see every detail of Viktor’s face as they trace through well-worn, well-loved movements at each other’s side.

Those movements, the way it feels to move side by side in parallel or in tandem with their bodies entwined, are unwavering constants. Sunlight or moonlight or starlight, Viktor’s hands still fold over Yuuri’s, their hips still roll against each other, and their bodies still move as if magnetized even in the moments when they don’t touch. Whether they’re bending or dancing—and the line between the two gets blurrier every day—Yuuri and Viktor allow themselves to get lost in the movement because they each know the other will always be there to ground them both.

On the icy cliffs above the city, fire and water dance together through the air, nothing to hold back and nothing to fear.

 

❄

 

A few weeks later, Yuuri picks up a project.

Really, he has Yuri to thank for most of it—the initial idea, the acquisition of materials, the basic technical know-how. Yuri refuses to admit why he knows any of this, only helps Yuuri in stolen moments when Viktor isn’t around and points him in the direction of the old woman at the market who sold him the materials to help Yuuri troubleshoot his more technical questions. She always smiles at him, looking particularly amused as she guides him through the movements. Yuuri has never been particularly good with his hands, preferring the great sweeping movements of dance to the finer details of artisanal crafting, but he has a vision and he does not stop until he sees that vision come to life in his hands.

After nearly a month of shoving his project in his pocket when Viktor gets home unexpectedly early and coming up with increasingly ridiculous excuses to steal moments alone, Yuuri finally looks upon his finished creation with a proud grin. Viktor won’t be home from practice for another hour, so Yuuri puts the project in his pocket, tidies up the living space, and prepares a pot of Viktor’s favorite turtle seal meat stew to cook over the fire.

Excitement makes Yuuri pace back and forth across the room until the front curtain finally pulls open to reveal Viktor, face flushed red from exercise and the chilled air. He takes in the delicious aroma, the furs spread in front of the roaring fire, and Yuuri’s excited fidgeting with widened eyes.

“Yuuri?” he asks. Yuuri’s stomach swoops. His face turns redder than Viktor’s.

“Hi.”

“What is this?”

“A surprise.”

“For me?”

Yuuri laughs, his nerves settling. “No, for Makkachin.”

As if summoned, Makkachin comes bounding across the room to run circles around Viktor’s legs.

“Makkachin! Wow, you’re such a good girl that Yuuri decided to make you my favorite dinner!”

Makkachin barks, her tongue lolling as Viktor scratches behind her ears. Yuuri can’t help but smile at the sight.

“I wanted her to know how much she means to me.”

“Ah,” Viktor exhales, his eyes sparkling. “What is the occasion?”

“You’ll see,” Yuuri teases, which makes Viktor whine low in his throat. Yuuri responds only by taking Viktor by the hand and leading him toward the fireplace, where they sit down cross-legged to eat their dinner.

“Where is Yuri?” Viktor asks as Yuuri spoons stew into their bowls.

“He’s, uh, with his grandfather.”

Viktor quakes an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I thought we might want a bit of privacy.”

There are a billion questions swimming in Viktor’s eyes, begging to be asked. Still Viktor holds himself back, letting Yuuri lead.

Viktor scarfs down every bit of his first bowl almost without stopping for breath, except to shower Yuuri’s cooking with compliments. He goes back for seconds, and devours that as well. Yuuri has to admit that the stew is quite good. Considering how vague the man at the market’s recipe was, Yuuri can allow himself to be proud of how it turned out.

“Yuuuuri,” Viktor needles when his patience inevitably wears thin. He sits his empty bowl at his side and fidgets. “I know you didn’t do all of this just because you felt like it.”

Yuuri smirks. “Didn’t I?”

“Mm, definitely not. So tell me, my Yuuri, what did I do to deserve such special treatment?"

“Nothing,” Yuuri replies.

Viktor blinks. “Nothing?”

“I mean, well, _everything,_ but that’s not the point!”

“Oh?”

“It’s not about what you’ve done for me,” Yuuri explains, scooting forward to close the distance between them. “It’s about what I want to do for you. _With_ you. If you let me.”

Yuuri reaches into his pocket, takes his last month’s labor of love into his hand, and places it gently in Viktor’s open palm.

“Yuuri, what…?”

Yuuri has always known this, ever since he bent his first flame for Viktor on the cliffs all those months ago, but Viktor’s ocean-blue eyes look positively enchanting in dancing yellow firelight. Now, the sea glass pendant shines just the same, watery blue and gleaming, sitting proudly on a black strip of fabric that tumbles over the sides of Viktor’s palm. Viktor tilts the pendant back and forth, watching the surface shine with rapt attention.

“Yuuri,” he whispers, “is this…?”

Yuuri swallows. “We don’t do this in the Fire Nation, we have rings instead, but Yuri told me that here, it’s customary to make—”

“A betrothal necklace.”

Yuuri’s breath catches in his throat. “Yes.”

Viktor looks up from the pendant for the first time, adoration painted in across his every feature. “It’s _beautiful.”_

Warmth shoots up Yuuri’s spine. “Ah…”

“You made this yourself?”

“Yuri helped, and Tatyana from the market.”

 _“Incredible,”_ Viktor mutters almost to himself as he studies the pendant closer.

“I know they are usually made to look like waves, or the moon,” Yuuri admits, “but I… I wanted to put a little piece of me into it, too. So I, um…”

“It’s fire,” Viktor breathes, his thumb running over the pointed ridges. The sea-blue glass has been made to look like a circle of swirling waves, but toward the top they reach upward into sharp points like flickering fire.

Flames of water and waves of fire—a tangible symbol of their love, to hang around Viktor’s neck if he decides that is what he wants.

“Wait here,” Viktor says suddenly, depositing the necklace back in Yuuri’s hand. Yuuri sits there, stunned, while Viktor darts over to the wall by the pots and pans, removes a brick of ice, and pulls out from behind it a small, cloth-wrapped bundle.

When he sits back down in front of Yuuri, he takes the necklace Yuuri made him back into his own hands and places the mystery bundle in Yuuri’s open palms.

Yuuri’s heart begins to beat double time.

“Vitya…”

“Open it,” Viktor demands, a breathless smile stretched across his face.

So Yuuri peels back the cloth, bit by bit, until in his hands sits a betrothal necklace like nothing Yuuri has ever seen.

“Oh, Vitya…”

“I wanted it to represent us, too.”

Yuuri has only ever seen betrothal necklaces carved of blue sea glass, colored to match the water their tribe relies so heavily upon. But the pendant in his hands holds a rainbow of colors within it, one half of the yin-yang symbol made of swirling blue, and the other of the reds and yellows and oranges of fire. Streaked through the curling flames are bits of green and blue and purple, like the inexplicable fire that surrounds Yuuri’s hands when he sets them against skin to heal. Yuuri can’t even imagine how Viktor achieved such an effect, when Yuuri had struggled enough with just the simple blue.

“Vitya, it is _gorgeous.”_

Viktor beams. “I am very happy with how it turned out.”

“You should be! It’s a masterpiece! How did you do this?”

Viktor smiles guiltily. “Tatyana helped me.”

“Tatyana!”

“It seems she was playing us, my dear Yuuri.”

“I had no idea you were… When did you do this?!”

“I finished a few weeks ago! I wanted to wait until the time was right.”

Yuuri laughs, stroking the smooth surface with his fingers. “I’m sorry I stole your moment, then.”

“What, by proposing to me first? Please, this was much more fun!”

“So it seems I have your answer then?”

“And it seems I have yours.”

“Put it on me?”

“You proposed first, darling, so you have to put mine on first.”

Yuuri huffs. “You’re stubborn.”

“Please, like you aren’t itching to see what this gorgeous work of art you made looks like around my neck.”

That strikes something deep within Yuuri and has him lurching forward and taking Viktor’s necklace from his hand.

“Turn around,” Yuuri commands, and Viktor does so immediately. Yuuri sweeps Viktor’s waterfall of silver hair over his shoulder and threads the strip of black cloth around Viktor’s throat, his fingers brushing the nape of Viktor’s neck as he fastens the ends together. Viktor shivers.

“Your turn,” Viktor prompts, turning around and picking up the necklace he made. Yuuri goes to turn around but hesitates, his gaze catching on the blue flame necklace at Viktor’s throat. It makes his mouth go dry.

Yuuri, completely distracted, never turns around, but Viktor makes do by sliding even closer and wrapping his arms over Yuuri’s shoulders to fasten the necklace. This takes longer since he is unable to see, but Yuuri does not complain. He can feel Viktor’s breath on his chin.

Yuuri can’t look away from Viktor’s necklace. _Betrothal_ necklace. The color matches his eyes perfectly.

The necklace around Yuuri’s own neck is flush with his skin, the material silky smooth. He can feel the weight of the pendant and he _basks_ in it: he is Viktor’s and Viktor is his.

With the necklace fastened around Yuuri’s neck, Viktor begins to pull away, but to put more distance between their bodies instead of less is unthinkable. Sitting cross-legged and facing each other might not be the most comfortable position for this, but Yuuri doesn’t care: in fact, he doesn’t think about it much at all. He simply acts on the well-worn instinct to keep Viktor close and love him the way he deserves.

Viktor goes to pull back and Yuuri reaches out, cradles both sides of Viktor’s head in his hands, and guides him forward into a kiss.

Yuuri can taste the surprise sweet on Viktor’s lips before he absolutely melts against him, sinking into Yuuri’s mouth and touch. They do this so often now that they don’t even have to think; they let their bodies guide them toward tiny gasps and low moans and laughter that vibrates against their skin.

Tonight, their promises to each other gleaming proudly in the firelight, they allow themselves to chase those instincts further than ever before, clothes in a forgotten heap by the fireside. Every inch of Yuuri’s skin burns against Viktor’s but it’s the _good_ kind of burn, the sweet caress that leaves every nerve in Yuuri’s body yearning for more. He moans his appreciation and showers Viktor with praise and touch and little chi-fire kisses down his exposed throat, his chest, his—

They fall asleep together in front of the fireplace, wrapped up in each other atop a fur blanket. Yuuri treasures every blissful, sated second before he drifts off, with a promise hung around his neck and his lover and partner and _future husband_ nestled warm against his side.

Inside Yuuri, there is a fire that once nearly burnt out—tonight, with his future in his arms, it blazes through his veins, unstoppable.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for your patience!! I spent so much time on this chapter, it's insane. I know it was a cruel place to leave all of you at the end of the last chapter, so I hope this one made up for it! The last chapter is technically an epilogue, but it will most likely be the length of a normal chapter so honestly it's just chapter 5. I'm not sure yet when it will be posted, but keep your eye out!
> 
> Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought!! I really appreciate them <3 
> 
> find me on tumblr at [stammiviktor](https://stammiviktor.tumblr.com/)!


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